


Lycoris

by Hereticality



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Feels, Canon Asexual Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Codependency, Denial of Feelings, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, Introspection, Lots of it, Lots of references to death and dying, M/M, Pining, Rated M for Husk's sailor mouth, References to Depression, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, amateur theology, original male character that they give terrible advice to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:54:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22412074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hereticality/pseuds/Hereticality
Summary: How did I end up here,Husk finds himself wondering, reverse cosmonaut, head floating cloud-light above his vest-clad torso in a fishbowl of existential doubt. In Hell,hopeholds you by the ballsack and shakes you down for spare change.When did it all go so wrong?-A few days before the Cleanse, local menaces Husk & The Radio Demon haunt a pub to do a magic show, bully a waiter, get shitfaced, and talk at length about a whole lot of nothing. All in all, a good night out.
Relationships: Alastor/Husk (Hazbin Hotel)
Comments: 95
Kudos: 227





	1. Prologue - Fishbowl

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Lycoris (Traduction)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23859019) by [Chysack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chysack/pseuds/Chysack)



Funny thing is, he’s never _really_ been a _pessimist_.

No, being a pessimist means seeing things worse than they are, like some kind of depressed piece of shit. Pessimists should be the happiest fucking people, what with everything always turning out better than expected and all. The day he wakes up a pessimist he’ll give that, after all, maybe there is a God.

No, fuck that. Life has made a _realist_ out of him, thank you very much. No point running around deluded till you wake up at fifty in the middle of a fucking war. 

When you’re still alive, buried deep—way deep—there’s always this sense of _better_. A vague chance to a nondescript bright tomorrow, just beyond reach. _Hope,_ the snob bitch, does not dwell in the shitty present. _Hope_ lives in this hypothetical future. A nice little prairie home out in the _when_ of all things. A moving post that, mirage-like, shuffles further away the closer you get. 

It’s always _when_. If you’re in a deep, deep desert of shit, it’s _if_. 

_(When_ things will be different. _When_ he got clean. _When_ the debt cleared, _when_ the nightmares stopped _when_ the ring fit back on _when when when_.)

Language is arbitrary. Say anything out loud for long enough, it loses all meaning.

_ (He knows all about language.) _

Then you die, you think it will all stop, and there’s _this_ waiting.

Ongoing turf wars and yearly Cleanses with everything spiralling into blood and chaos, sure. _Actual_ fire and brimstone’s a blessing compared to the rest. The sisyphean humdrum of everyday. This sick parody of humanity—a life, a body, fucking _bills_ —for _eternity_. _Why?_ For _what?_ Jesus Christ, he wants a drink.

“Hey,” someone in the small audience yells, “d’ya think this shitty magic show thing’s gonna start anytime before the Cleanse comes?”

Nervous laughter. Hell has a vibration going through it, in the days before a Cleanse. Pulses with an undercurrent of fear. Feverish anticipation. It’s hard to talk about anything else, to keep it out of every joke and cheer. It’s an infestation.

Then, something cuts through the looming thoughts of reckoning and Angel spears. A strident, dissonant noise. Sounds the way a bleeding eardrum feels. It only lasts a second. 

Husk grits his teeth. Shrugs it off. He is, alas, accustomed. 

(Because of course, _of course_ just tonight, to make it extra special, _that guy_ is here.)

_How did I end up here,_ Husk finds himself wondering, reverse cosmonaut, head floating cloud-light above his vest-clad torso in a fishbowl of existential doubt. In Hell, _hope_ holds you by the ballsack and shakes you down for spare change. _When did it all go so wrong?_

Because it’s not that he is _opposed_ to things going ok—it’s just that really, shit, with a life like _that_ and an afterlife like _this,_ how long can it take anyone with an ounce of sense to take a hint? In this piss-stained puke-soaked backstabbing wreck of a place, _hope_ is nothing but a pain in the ass.

Fine, _fine,_ if he _has_ to be a pessimist, at least he is a _Pessimist_. Capital fucking _P_. A cat of the same dour breed as Leopardi and Schopenhauer. If the curse is the _when_ , if sense of time is the source of all despair, then _hope_ is the devil’s pocket watch. _Non c’è limite al peggio,_ the worst has no limit, they say over there, where they call giving someone the air a _Two of Spades_.

Because oh, the grinning one that now sits at the piano—this creature is the goddamn _personification_ of hope. Felt mallets on the metal tines of his nerves, that’s what he is.

_(Don’t let him know.)_

And at the end of it all? The heat death of the universe, if they’re lucky.

What a big fucking riot.


	2. a volunteer to ride out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, my guy’s still outside chucking up. Anyone in here can play the piano?”

“I fucking swear, Jérôme, if you ain’t done within the next _thirty seconds_ I’m making you eat it back up.”

A street corner, a dingy pub. A young demon, doubled over, one hand on the filthy wall and one on his alcohol-queasy stomach. He gives no reply other than a grunt and a shaky middle finger. Husk stuck holding the kid’s apron, swearing. None of the demons huddled for a smoke in the neon glow of the pub’s sign even spares them a look.

“... no, ok, listen… I was covering at the bar,” Jérôme tries to say, wheezed, “and these girls kept buying me drinks…”

“Fucking unbelievable.”

Husk throws his hands up, letting them fall back against his thighs. Slack, like an exasperated market vendor. Who _the fuck_ gets plastered in the middle of his waitering shift? Don’t answer that. He’s buzzed himself, unfiltered with irritation, but not gone enough to ask out loud.

“But I had just, like, three.” Jérôme staggers upright, a frown of concentration. “... maybe it was four. And a sundae. Wait, no… five? Wait…”

The irritated swish of Husk’s tail lifts up dust from the street in the evening air. He holds back from moving his wings too much. Most of his props are stashed in them. Wings are the magic-keepers.

“First rule of bartending, for fuck’s sake.” The movement also fans a whiff of the kid’s unfortunate life choices from the sidewalk right to his nostrils. He gags. _“Gh—_ no mixing beer and ice-cream, God. Can’t believe I have to be the one to tell you. Again.”

“Ugh, shut… get off my back… stop, uh, _judging_ and shit...”

One time. The one time Husk has the chance to use his other hobby to make a quick buck. The one fucking time. His last minute piano guy bent over power-washing the sidewalk with sick, what more? Husk hits the pub’s wall, side-hands it, crinkling a faded band poster. Some dust comes off the stone, leaving streaks on his sleeve. _Why is this guy’s name Jérôme?_ he thinks sourly. _He’s not even French._

“You shouldn’t be mixing your fucking alcohol, too.”

Jérôme lets out a feeble, peevish scoff. “It’s a… it’s a fucking cocktail, man, it’s already mixed...”

“Oh boy.”

“Who do you think… who in there you think even gives a shit about a _magic show,_ anyway?” Fresh round of retching and dry-heaving. The kid groans, “Place came with a stage, Boss wants to sell drinks, that’s all. It’s you tonight and some shitty Ska band tomorrow.”

 _Yeah,_ Husk thinks, _and that’s the goddamn point._

If it _had_ to be any good, Husk would have said no. Who has that kind of energy these days? But there’s no point explaining that to Jérôme. Kid works in a pub and can’t tell cider from apple juice, he’s a lost cause.

Jérôme is a demon of the worst kind: dead both young and recent. A nightmare of cultural disconnect made cockatiel crest on gangly legs. Can’t be more than twenty-five or so. Husk sighs through his teeth, letting out a throaty hiss.

“Yeah, and the _Denny & Dunipace _ rejects play on Monday night. I work here too.” Using the _Don’t get cheeky with me, son_ tone really makes him feel his age. For the purposes of this discussion though, he’s decided that his occasional bartending gig counts as _working here_. “Any point you’re trying to make?”

“You… you should consider joining them.”

“Really? That’s your comeback?”

Most importantly, Jérôme is a dick. And an unreliable one to boot. Fool me once, fool me twice, you know the saying. 

But Jérôme can find his way around a piano, and this kind of thing is always last minute. It’s not like Husk can just snap his fingers and summon some other demon to do it, now, can he? If he could, he wouldn’t be in this situation.

“Why do you even _need_ a piano man for a magic show, anyway?”

Husk has the misfortune to know a guy that does exactly that. Every time there’s a job he doesn’t feel like doing himself, or some new harebrained scheme _—click_ go those red-clawed fingers. And _bam,_ here’s some weird crap to deal with, _Have fun, Husker! Let's get drinks sometime!_

Not the way Husk works. Never has. Bartering, scheming, maintaining a network of connections… listen, it’s enough that he remembers to wash his spats, and ring up ol’ Niffty once in a while. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

It’s true, yes, piano accompaniment is a non-essential. Especially for a routine that’s mostly close-up, with no stage grandiosity, no big props to justify that kind of flair. He really… he really shouldn’t care.

 _—but_ it helps keep time, it sets the mood, it makes the transitions smoother. And Husk, for fuck’s sake, he _likes_ it. It’s the _one_ thing he likes. He has a _process_. Can’t he have this one thing, just this once? Something going the way it’s _supposed_ to go?

Husk nods to the puddle. “Stick with what you know, Jérôme.” 

It’s a stupid little hobby, isn’t it? _Magic_ , bah. It’s childish. It doesn’t _need_ to be good, he’ll get paid anyway. Probably. And if he doesn’t, whatever. He can win that money back three times over, just name the game.

This is Hell. Of course no one would care. Husk himself cares least of all. This tipsy, you couldn’t pay him to care about shit.

Sober Husk and all that _caring_ , he just sets himself up for failure. Sober Husk and all those questions, like rain that pours. _What am I doing, why did this happen, why didn’t I say that when I had the chance._ Son of the desert, he does not do well with too much rain. (Sober Husk and all that wretched _hope_.)

He swats the dust off his dirty sleeve. A string of colored handkerchiefs, three plastic flowers, and his pack of trick cards tumble out of it, deaf to his imprecations. He spares a moment to look up at the sky over Pentagram City. Cold, dull, the color of a day-old bruise.

Just looking up at it makes you regret having put effort into anything, ever.

* * *

Husk has no taste for _actual_ magic. 

He’ll look at it, sure, maybe even enjoy it. But he’s done messing with it himself. If it can’t all fit in your coat pocket, he ain’t with it.

Of course, when he saw his first show as a boy, stage magic and _actual_ magic were one and the same. That’s the appeal, isn’t it, to a child’s mind? The power, the mystery, the wonder.

Any chance he got, he was on stage. Shot right out of his seat to volunteer, every time a performer popped the question. He loved to play Assistant, take part in the show as more than audience. Disappearing Box, the old classic, was one of his favorites. He’d crawl into the dusty space and listen, heart pounding into the echo of his breath, waiting for his cue. His whole being soared with the applause as he reappeared, but the best part was the _Secret_. Knowing how the trick worked, when the rest of the room did not. Having been made safekeeper, for a little while. A time-bound spell.

This is about unveiling. The beauty of it. A child-loved fascination that did nothing but grow the more he peered into the skill and engineering of magic. It made him dream that this could be his future, and some dreams are like rattlesnakes: kill them when they’re young, the poison’s already there. Life won’t waste any time trying.

Hell is a place of _actual_ magic. Cause and solution of all power struggles. Messy business. Real pain in the ass. 

In a place like this, the charm of a magic trick lies all in the skill, in the performance, in the way the magician carries himself. The cards are Husk’s element, his native language, his playing field. And at the same time, there’s no need for every trick to come out perfect. In this upside-down place, it is the measure of imperfection that serves as a gauge of skill, and will not get him accused of simply _—psh—_ having _powers,_ or some shit. 

He is fond of close-up magic especially. Sitting with people there at the same table. Like a round of cards between old friends. _Pick a card, any card._ The honesty of it, no bets, no stakes. No need to cheat. It’s a fragile, time-bound kind of trust. Like a spell, it lasts only until the show does. 

_Look at my hands_. _Would be simple, if I explained it. (I won’t.)_ _You could do it too, if you practiced. (You won’t.)_

Life hasn’t managed to beat this out of him. It tried, it did, beat down on that rattlesnake with a stick until it was mush. It didn’t die. Then war had come. Then Hell itself. _I swear,_ his hands keep saying, _I swear it is innocent._ Husk has stuck with it beyond death, stubbornly human. Just like his old acquaintance, king of stubbornness, sticking with the name his mother gave him.

_(Magician’s fingers, keepers of secrets.)_

This is all the good he has to share, this last shining glimmer.

_(Don’t reveal the trick.)_

* * *

Preparations. All his props in place, Husk adjusts the sleeves he never wears. Straightens down his ill-fitting vest. Inhales deep in the greasy air of the pub, pushing the rebreathed alcohol fumes down, down, down. Punishes his lungs for making a grab for oxygen.

He clears his throat, offers his audience what passes for a smile these days, and makes a last ditch effort.

“Evening, folks.” He stands up a little taller, at least tries. Damn, he used to be tall. “So, my guy’s still outside chucking up. Anyone in here can play the piano?”

Some nasty laughter. Some heckling. A couple demons up and leave. All expected, nothing old, nothing new.

It’s the variety in audiences that makes them cruel. It’s a game of chances that can’t be won. This is your everyday pub crowd. The folks that come here are so used to shitty performers, it might have become this place’s shtick. Nothing in common except, perhaps, having nowhere else to go tonight. A healthy dose of self-hate. A tolerance for cheap gin. 

Husk allows himself a last resigned sigh. _Whatever,_ he tells himself. _It’s just a stupid hobby, anyway._

When he looks back up, he catches a ripple of movement at the corner of his eye. The base of his whiskers gives a prickle, a familiar feeling as a faint buzz of static makes his ear twitch. _Oh, crap_.

All turn. All couple dozen pairs of eyes, drawn as one by the same foreboding dread. All look to the suspiciously deserted corner at the back of the pub. A flash of teeth glints off the wan stage light.

Someone else has stood up, but not to leave.

 _Oh, not you._ Husk’s hackles rise. _Anyone but you._

A red-clad arm shoots up, straight as a flagpole, in the universal gesture of volunteering. The alarmed chatter Husk is just now noticing grows louder. A current of motion through the small crowd as many try to shuffle away to the exit. A few faint screams: locked.

“I’ll rephrase,” Husk deadpans. Everyone falls silent. “Can _anyone else_ in here play the piano?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a couple weeks ago I was re-reading Jadeile's fantastic [Afterlife](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21694939/chapters/51744391) and I thought to myself, wouldn't it be neat if Alastor accompanied Husk's magic show on the piano? And then this happened.
> 
> Chapter title from Paper Lace's Billy don't be a Hero


	3. Soldier's Prayer Book

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A gift of silence and ragtime.

In the moment of hushed silence, the raised hand snaps its fingers.

The lights flicker off and return, changed—sharper and redder and more sinister. Once his eyes adjust, every surface Husk can see is covered in red candles.

Bunches of them on the ornate candelabra that were not there before. A handful on each table. On the new baize Husk helped install last week. Melting, dripping, like they've been lit for hours. The Radio Demon's perennial grin glows faint in the half-light, and he offers Husk the red-edged silhouette of a dancer's bow. His mere presence is thinning out the air in the room.

Fucking _great_. The walking one-man show wants to be his piano guy.

"No one else?" Husk attempts one last time. "Are we sure? Not even _Chopsticks?"_

The grin widens into that something that always makes him think of anglerfish. Of secret places, unlit waters. Husk watches Alastor sink into his shadow, reappearing at the piano with an unsettling slither. The entire first row abandons their tables to move away from the stage.

At the second snap, a single fresnel light shines down on Husk's baffled face. He winces at the brightness, his stomach twisting unpleasantly.

When that piano starts playing… some shit is going down. Anything might happen. Husk has seen this before. Not _this,_ exactly—but this kind of circumstance. Any moment now, something unsavory and _loud_ —broadcast, carnage, impromptu musical number—all three, if they're lucky. He knows how these things go. If there's no show to steal, Alastor will snap one into existence.

Yeah, alright. No way in Hell he's getting paid tonight.

Just as Husk is considering how handy it would be to have _actual_ magic, just this once, to disappear in a trapdoor and reappear facedown on his couch, the heckler from before speaks up. The only person who—a true paradigm of balls of steel and brains of oatmeal—did not move from his spot now loudly calls for the goddamn show to _start already._ Guy must be suicidal, it's the only explanation.

Already weary, Husk turns to Alastor to see what bullshit he's about to start, what witty one-liner will he spark off the chaos with.

And Alastor… says nothing at all. He merely grins a little wider, self-assured and menacing as ever. He emits no sound other than that anticipatory crackle of static, and slinks onto the piano stool.

Husk watches, frozen in confusion, his long coattails flare out and settle with a flutter down the back of the seat, as he carefully lifts the fallboard and finds his hands on the ivory keys. Despite the cold chills running down Husk's spine, his eyes find a moment to notice the lack of pinstripes, the cut of Alastor's dinner jacket, impeccably tailored and in the deep red of amarena cherries, sporting a single artsy stitch on the left lapel. He takes in the polished, well-loved dress shoe that settles on the pedal, glinting in the light. Something is different, in the way the air twists. He can't quite place it.

 _What the fuck is going_ _on,_ Husk wants to yell. _Why are you in a_ _tux._

The first thing that happens when that piano starts playing, turns out, is utter confusion.

It looks the same, from this angle, but the sound that comes from it is not at all the sound a common upright piano should make. It's pitched higher, metallic, like a music box left open. Husk squints, perks his ears. He knows this. _Really, a fucking Glockenspiel…? Were you all out of marimbas?_ But that's not right either. It's gentler than that, a way mellower timbre. Felt mallets on metal tines, a tickle of vibration against the sensitive hairs in his ears. A sound like raindrops.

Sweat beads on his palms. He feels it, heart-shaped pads growing slick. His feet, too, he's gonna start leaving wet footprints if he doesn't get a grip. Alright, so the piano is a damn _Celesta_ now. Not the weirdest thing he's seen Alastor do, for sure. _Keep it together._ That's all there is, spooky candles and ill-named instruments. He can roll with it. When he tries to discreetly dry his hands, he distantly registers a change in texture. He glances down at himself.

Yep. Alright. He's wearing a completely different outfit. It fits like some bespoke fine shit—goddammit, he should be used to this by now. He shifts slightly, feeling the way it falls smooth against his fur.

It comes with fucking _cufflinks._

 _What the hell,_ he mouths at Alastor, but he is busy arranging _Thunder and Blazes,_ of all things—always with the clown jokes, this goddamn prankster… he's up there to ridicule him, isn't he?—and pays him no mind. The music starts pulling a few nervous chuckles from the terrified audience. A few demons sit back down, shaking visibly. Oh, he must be _loving_ this, the smug bastard.

As if he sensed his thoughts, Alastor glances up and flashes him a wide grin. It's full off—something. Well, teeth. Mostly teeth. But something else, too, that Husk recognises as genuine mirth after a moment of soul-searching. Then, with a set of the shoulder that could arguably be interpreted as apologetic, Alastor switches up the tune to something harmlessly jazzy and introductory.

 _Huh._ Well. Might as well perform then, fuck it. If he can manage, with his hands sweating like this.

As he clears his throat, now unsure on how these things ever started, he goes to dry his palms again and he notices it. He's not sweating anymore.

The music is whimsical, slightly dreamy, lulling the whole scene into surreality. In fact, he feels—entirely sober. The _good_ kind of sober, no rain-questions and crises and curling up in a ball—he feels… sane. Clear-headed. A warmth tingle runs through his limbs, a fearless confidence infusing his apathy like a shot of vodka in cloudy lemonade.

Since he considers himself a hobbyist, he doesn't have a defined stage persona. However, turns out that _Sweetheart O'mine_ , played on a Celesta by this particular demon, ends up something with the mood of a _Mystery House_ intro for a Sugar Plum Fairy on acid. That sure gives a guy something to work with, doesn't it? He reaches for his pocket, grinning, with no way to know if any of his props are still in place.

His pack of cards finds its way into his hand, faithful companion of ignored ridicule, and it turns out Alastor can play all the Jelly Roll Morton anyone fucking about on a stage could ever desire. _Fuck it_ , Husk thinks again. _Maybe it can work._

 _Deep breath._ Cards in hand. The start is tricky, he remembers now: it needs to be strong, but not too complex. Something that eases into it, magician and audience taking the plunge together. _Come, look at my hands. Hold your breath. It's easy._

He starts with _Soldier's Prayer B_ _ook._ It's a crowd-pleaser, and tickles his taste for irony too much to let go of. Another deep breath, panicky excitement making his tail swish about to the beat. _Come on, it's time._ Toss up some card flourishes, ease into the routine. _Deep breath. Hold it. Take the plunge._

"Now, all right, seems we're finally all set! Hang on to your long johns, folks," he starts, letting his nimble claws cut and shuffle the pack with practised ease. "We're gonna see how my man Dick Middelton, fellow soldier, found himself in front of the _Mayor—"_ He pauses for effect, and _yes,_ his volunteer piano man flourishes it with a dramatic little arpeggio. "—and put on fucking _trial,_ all for pulling out his pack of cards in _church…"_

Trick goes like this: you've got fifty-two cards, and a story built on numbers. The cards come in a sequence, and it's important that people see you shuffle. It's important that they don't see that it's a false shuffle, that's the whole trick. _(Told you it was simple.)_ It must look like the cards aligned themselves in the right order… like _magic_ or something. You also need to prattle your way through the thing, the faster the better. The illusion is a little wonder of structure, like the flavors of a complex dish. It's built in layers.

_(He knows nothing of cooking.)_

The other important bit is that numbers and story must meet and align, their accord unseen. It's all in the hands of the magician. Your skill against two dozen prying eyes, and your hands must say, _Look, it's easy. It just happens._ Guard that secrecy with your life.

"So, Dick pulls out his cards, right? Looking to explain himself. He looks up at the Mayor and starts, _When I see t_ _he Ace—"_ The Ace of Diamonds, worn and familiar beneath his thumb, pops out. First out of the way, the rest of the sequence tumbles easy after it, _"It reminds m_ _e that there is but one God. When I see the Deuce, it reminds me of the Father and Son. When I see the Trey, it reminds me of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. When I see the Four, it reminds me of the four Evangelists that preached the Gospel: Matthew, Mark, Luke and_ _John."_

There's the simple, irony-tinged delight of telling a long-winded joke about church in Hell. It already makes it worth it. The part with the _Knave_ usually brings out the anarchic spirit of Hell's denizens, and even now, in these dregs of terror, it draws out a chuckle. In the gauzy-soft light of a happy childhood memory in a hard life, he remembers how magicians would sometimes pick on audience members that make themselves a nuisance. That used to be his _other_ favorite part. He flicks the card off, sending it to land perfectly in front of the heckler from before. It gets some louder reactions.

He glances to the side, to see if Alastor has caught it. He is accompanying the number with a cheery hymn-like march that fits the cadence of Husk's patter. Eyes closed, he leans slightly into the keys, tilted forward, like a cattail to water. He's seen nothing.

"And so," Husk continues, "our man Dick Middelton tells the Mayor, who by now is feelin' kinda fond, _When I count how many cards there are in a pack, I find there are fifty-two; there are so many weeks in a_ _year."_ Time to finish, and pretend he's sure he counted everything right. " _When I count how many tricks there are in a pack of cards, I find there are twelve, and there are so many months in a year._ " Only a couple cards left now, to wrap up. " _You see, sir, that this pack of cards is a Bible, Almanac, and Prayer Book, to me_. And that's all we got! Dick, what a mad bastard."

Done, first trick is out of the way, no mishaps. Husk gets some applause and some walk-outs. Door opens again, it seems. He pays it no mind. It's a profession impervious to ridicule, that's the thing. Otherwise, he wouldn't be up here in a top hat, trying to make people in Hell appreciate the simple ingenuity of a parlor trick. It's just logic.

_(Heartfelt logic.)_

The story might have been blasphemous in its time, and it's now the tamest shit ever. It's how it goes with blasphemous things, when times change and outrage changes shape and measure. The shape is a circle, the measure is how far you can cast the first stone. Blasphemy and outrage play a game of cycles, both decks unshuffled, people reinventing the wheel over and over and getting offended by it. Don't bet on this one, shit's rigged.

Through all of it, a separate part of him is listening only to the Celesta, dreamy through the chaos and energy. Alastor and his raindrop music, his heaven-named instrument. Husk finds himself wondering, _how would_ We Gotta Get out of This Place _sound on that thing?_

He turns to the girls at the closest table, same ones that got Jérôme drunk. With things turning out as they are, he almost feels like thanking them.

"Pick a card, any card," he says instead. Time for some classics.

A young demon covered in leopard spots grins and plucks a card from his fan. Shuffle, sleight of hand, everyone knows how this one goes. A smile and a flourish and his voice pitched low, "Was this your card, kitten?"

This is the stage persona the music has given him. Husk really doesn't do this very often, not anymore. It's kind of a relief when the girl chuckles, a little pink under her spots. Alastor makes a funny noise, like the _twang_ of a snapped violin string, makes the crowd laugh. He arpeggios his way over a skipped note with the grace of a politician covering up an indiscretion.

And it is, indeed, her card.

The tension in the room has dissipated a little more by then. When the comforting sound of clinking glasses resumes, Husk's tail stops swishing, settling for an idle, interested sway. He does tricks for the rest of the table, then the next, and the one after. As someone asks if he can do _Sam the Bellhop_ too, some of the front row deserters creep back into their seats.

 _It's working,_ he thinks, incredulous.

Alastor is pulling his routine from thin fucking air. The music always fits: at times it guides Husk's gestures, giving his acting a little boost. At times it follows, letting him set the pace. As it goes, it starts giving Husk the uneasy feeling of being circled, like a cat playing with his food. _(He is not the cat.)_

He ignores it. Now properly warmed up, Husk dives into his sleeve-full of classics. Some coin tricks, swapping them for trinkets and poker chips. More with the cards—there is _so much_ you can do with cards—some glasses and bottles swapping places and so on. There was a display of _actual_ magic at the start, so he makes a point to keep everything dead simple, known and reassuring. _That's right, no powers here, folks. Just a nimble old cat. Look closely, look at my hands. See? It's simple. You can shuffle_ _it yourself_ _if you like._ His top hat—now sporting an impeccably shiny red silk band and lining—becomes a portal to all sorts of little objects: lit candles, handkerchiefs, wallets.

There are some knives and plates and shoes to dodge for that last one, but it's worth it. Even for a hobbyist, occupational hazards are half the fun. He looks over just in time to see Alastor smoothly avoid a boot with an unnatural extension of the neck, not a note missed. Husk feels something bubble up inside him, like a suppressed burp. He thumps his chest. What rumbles out instead is a scratchy bark of laughter.

That's… new. Hadn't heard one of those in a while. And even more disconcerting is the smile on the Radio Demon's face. Not even a menacing smile, a real smile. Almost sincere.

The music has changed, something slow Husk struggles to recognise. _It must be the music_ , he decides. Has to be. It's that dreamy, fairy-fingered music that tinges the atmosphere this way, and makes him feel _sane_ and certain, makes him feel like things make sense. Or maybe—maybe the day of reckoning has come for him too, and that's why Alastor is being so unlike himself. Better make it good, then, what the hell.

Husk pulls a Ten of Clubs out of thin air, and smacks it between his palms. Instead of the expected set of cheap fake flowers, what appears in his hands is a large bouquet of fresh red lilies. He blinks down at them, bunch of sharp things with long lower petals, curved up like creepy little chandeliers. His audience actually gives a faint _ohh_ at the sight. The trimmed stems are sharp as chisels.

The bastard is lost in his raindrop music, eyes closed, and cannot meet the baffled look Husk throws his way. The smell of the lilies is cloying to his feline nose, honey-soft and damp, like fresh mud. It makes him think of cemeteries, of floods. Makes him light-headed, too.

Guided by the tingly suspense of the music, moving between tables in the low light, Husk walks back to the used-to-be-piano. He's made the lilies vanish along the way. They now bathe those scalpel-stems in the backwash of a few glasses.

All but a single one. He sets it carefully on the open lid of the Celesta, and watches Alastor's skilled hands improvising their way through Debussy's _Reverie_ —ah, that's what it was—drenched in the red candle-light that sharpens and softens every contour at once.

In perhaps in the most daring trick of the whole evening, Husk opens his wings wide, flapping once. In a snap of practiced fingers, the lily reappears neatly tucked into the Radio Demon's lapel, right next to the bright red stitching.

The candles flicker without going out. The crowd gasps in terror, and in a split second of silence Husk feels certain that he just doomed the entire pub to final death. But the music doesn't stop, and Alastor meets his eye, one fine eyebrow quirking up. Husk vaguely wonders how much is he going to owe him for all this.

_(Everything he has.)_

Time's up. He never decides it in advance, but Husk always knows when a show is over. You can feel it, the shift in the energy, when disbelief isn't willing to be suspended anymore. A little high on fearlessness, he bows to his audience. There is clapping, surprisingly, and only moderate booing.

When he turns to share the measly applause with Alastor, he finds the piano stool empty.

Husk looks around. It feels wrong to receive the unexpected praise all by himself. They should at least… bow together, or something. This is Hell: the applause won't last for more than a few seconds. Alastor will miss it, and—there, it's over. He's missed it.

Defying expectations, the pub does not return to its dingy glory in a blink. The strange little piano, the red candles, all the rest—it all stays behind, except the red creature that made a show for him and let him have it.

Husk looks back at the used-to-be-piano, still a well-used and banged up thing. Did it already exist, or was it created new for this, already well-loved to fit the aesthetic? His head, still in the fishbowl, is stuck in the future, in the little _when_ that the music created.

His eye falls on the stool, and the single red lily left on it.

_(Everything he is.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jelly Roll Morton's [Sweetheart o' Mine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R4pnpB5Muc);  
> Full script of the [Soldier's Prayer Book card trick](https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.12700100/?st=text);  
> What a [Celesta](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jk8GIhLILQ) sounds like.


	4. Fraoch Heather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A strange, pensive mood. Also, fries.

He sits in a portrait of dejected satisfaction.

 _Old magician with beer_ , shit on canvas, 21st Century, Hell.

It is believed to represent the aftermath of a performance, that bittersweet torpor. Performing is like doing drugs, they say. There’s a high and then a low.

Notice the drooping lines of the old magician’s shoulders, where they hang weary, as if holding up more weight than they can carry. The half-lidded eyes that gaze far into the distance, looking nowhere and anywhere. What has he seen? Notice the half-smile that tenses his face in cynical quietude.

The current state should not be used as a gauge of outcome. It could have been a standing ovation, he could have been booed off the stage. It does not matter. The man is winged, and cat-like. We associate cats with cheating death, and wings with freedom. He _can_ fly, there’s nothing chaining him down, he just does not care to. Why? What is he waiting for?

Consider the fragility of wing-bone under the sleek fur. It would be shinier, if he took better care of himself. His emaciated appearance brings to mind cheap allegories to the human condition, its hollow-boned fragility. The damnation we create for ourselves. Is the _O_ _ld_ _magician_ a cautionary tale against rattlesnake dreams, or an homage to the tragedy of past glory?

 _Lean close. Look at his hands._ What story can we reconstruct? In his magician’s hands he gathers his leftover props. The brushstrokes here are short and sweeping, the man immortalized forever in the act of shifting objects on the weathered wood of a bar’s table, like a game of Solitaire. A beer bottle, a candle, a pack of playing cards. What does symbolism tell us about this particular trinity?

Is dejection necessarily conflated with indifference?

_(“Disillusionment of the Illusionist,” you’d say. And laugh.)_

Notice the empty seat in front of him. Notice the red flower, still and unmoved. There, right where you’d put down a plate.

Don’t bring it up, though.

Have some fucking manners.

* * *

Husk has claimed the front row table off to the side, the one with the bench against the wall. He doesn’t have a bad leg anymore, but still likes to stretch it out sometimes. Habits.

The light of the candle flickers idle on the dark amber glass of his bottle, as he puts it down on the same spot, wet with condensation. It was a good night, all in all. Deserves some malt-sweet Fraoch Heather, just light stuff, attempting to preserve that rare light mood that captured him on stage.

 _Can’t believe something went well, for once._ He raises his beer to the flower. A stand-in toast.

All the good he had left to share, discarded on a piano stool. But what did he expect, really? He’s all out of energy, limbs heavy with the particular, rare torpor of accomplishment. All the evening needs now is a shower and some shut eye.

No, he shouldn’t go looking. If the bastard is not around, it’s because he doesn’t care to be. _No idea where the fuck you disappeared to, you mad bastar_ _d,_ _but cheers to that_ _._

Overall, he must admit, Alastor has used his powers with discretion. He’s been careful not to steal the spotlight, even for a moment. He’s been almost… considerate. Alastor. _Considerate._ It reads like a dark omen.

Husk is still wearing the outfit, baffled with how comfortable it is. Clothes don’t agree much with this form—what with the extra limbs, slinky vertebrae, lack of collarbone and whatnot. The stuff you can learn to live with would surprise you, though. All he had to do was get in the habit of storing essentials in the lining of his hat, like some furred parody of a late Victorian gent. Just thinking it makes him chuckle. That’s the level of comfortably buzzed he’s managed to achieve, for once.

It’s hard to take his eyes off the cufflinks. Such perfect little things, impeccable even under close examination. Perfectly themed, four-parted squares. Card suits, of course. Husk’s not exactly hard to shop for, is he?

But, thing is, Alastor’s magic is not usually _structural._ That’s a lot of effort, much easier to put up an illusion and hold it for however long. Less clean-up, too. And yet, the elements of the show all stayed behind. The candles, the flowers, the outfit. Even the Celesta. Alastor might actually have made the effort to _make_ them.

For the life of him, Husk can’t figure out _why_.

A shift. Electricity tickling his whiskers. The air again grows thin with that difference, that brink-of-winter smell like dust burning in an old radiator. He guesses the Radio Demon must have come up to him when, mysteriously, most of the patrons sitting nearby scuttle a few tables over. 

Disguising a huff of relief as one of annoyance, Husk puts his feet up on the chair opposite of him, just because he can. “Hey,” he greets without looking up, lazily waving his beer. “You missed all the applause.”

There’s nothing better than walking around the city with Alastor, he remembers apropos of nothing. Strained, terrified smiles everywhere the tip-tap of his shoes can be heard, and no one dares to come bother you. It’s fucking fantastic. Only catch is… the guy usually has to be with you for it to work. Not always, though—ongoing collaboration does have its perks. Alastor never needs a reservation to eat anywhere he wants, either. Or any money.

That’s a funny one. Despite money _absolutely_ being a thing in Hell, the Radio Demon operates as if it were not a thing at all. Dealmaker by trade, he conducts a life of intricate bartering, dealing only in favors and services.

 _Why, m_ _oney has no place in the afterlife!_ he says when questioned about it. It’s one of those _principles_ of his. No more pieces of paper deciding what he is, or what he owns. There are fires, floods, Cleanses. Papers get lost, soul contracts are forever.

Alastor’s a riot to play faro with, and a fucking nightmare to be indebted to.

Not a word uttered, the bastard ignores the free chair and rounds the table, sitting next to him on the bench. He sits too close. Not surprising. Close enough that Husk can feel the dig of his hipbone against his side. _Kinda_ surprising. Husk leans away, but just a bit. Too settled in his spot to shift much.

“T’was like, a whole ten seconds,” he continues. “And you missed it. I don’t know how you’ll live with yourself.”

A bottle from his under-table stash, generously offered. Gracious acceptance, evaluation, a snap of deft fingers. Alastor pours his new robust red wine, and Husk laughs. Now, that’s some _actual_ magic that would _really_ come in handy.

There’s just one thing bugging him: in over forty years of acquaintanceship, Husk cannot remember a single instance of Alastor not saying a word for so long. The only thing more unsettling than Alastor’s voice, after all, is Alastor’s silence.

“Oi,” he calls, blunt, “did they leave you on mute tonight, or what?”

There is a minute startle, then a faint electric hum and crunch, like the sound of an amp being switched on.

“Just a little preoccupied, I suppose.”

The voice sounds farther than usual, like something recorded facing away from the mic, but it is Alastor’s unmistakeable nasal tenor.

The pleasant torpor returns, like a big swing of something strong pooling comfortably in Husk’s stomach. The knot of dread that was twisting it is only noticed in its dissipation. _Finally,_ it breathes out. If the smile is in place, and the voice is doing its usual weird shit—then things can’t be any worse than what Husk is used to.

Alastor’s voice reminds most folks of old Hollywood—something he’s seen make the Radio Demon’s eye twitch, if mentioned in his presence—but for Husk, his coeval, it brings back his days of youth and the few idle hours at dad’s casino. Had he ever heard Alastor’s voice over the radio, back then? It’s possible. Guy used to be a big shot, they say. Husk can’t say he remembers much.

What he does remember is that they were building a real big dam, south-east. Made a whole pristine town just for the workers, expected to live _free of sin_ _._ Embodying the defiant spirit of the neighbouring Vegas, the workers still wanted to gamble, drink, and fuck—which at the time were all at various degrees of illegal. Not easy years, those ones, and in dire times gambling houses are at their fullest. He’d be mopping floors and planning moonshine rides at all hours, listening to the crackle of the radio. The new president, in that same phony rich boy inflection, told them every few weeks that things wouldn’t always be this bad. That it would turn. That there was _hope_. 

Alastor has called the lily to his hand. He twirls it idly, red on red against his nails. It strikes Husk with a sharp, sudden tug that Alastor has not lived long enough to hear even one of those _fireside chats,_ collect any of the hope.

“Preoccupied? With what?”

“Nothing important, really. I might be feeling a little off.” _Con le mani brucianti_ , a snippet of operatic wail plays out of him, chopped up with interference, _stringerò i lembi d’oro del tuo manto stellato…_

“... huh.” For a second, Husk is at a loss for words. He elects to ignore, gesturing to his drink, the table, the metonymy of hospitality. “Uh, what you say about a bite to eat? That usually helps.”

“Hm! I’m not really in the mood,” Alastor says, distracted. “But, if you’re hungry, I believe I heard someone not clapping at that table over there. Back in a jiffy!”

Confused to alarmed in an instant, Husk starts forward to stop him. Perhaps as a testament to Alastor not feeling much like himself, he makes it in time.

“Wait _no_ —I was thinking more like a chippy, or whatever else they have.” He clears his throat, a little touched in some weird awful way. “Never sampled the food here, but it’s hard to mess up fries, right? Shh, don’t answer that.”

Alastor lowers the index finger he had raised, likely to make a point about _proper_ fries, or whatever, and sits back down. Evidently deeming it a solid alternative to heckler steaks, he takes it upon himself to hail a waiter and get them some beer-battered goodness to share.

“Huh, didn’t even know they made them with gravy, here,” Husk hums. Salt and grease and beef drippings, what’s more to wish for? He rotates the basket to offer Alastor the most bitter-burnt half. “My theory’s that British cuisine as a whole is secretly hangover scran.”

The Radio Demon is turning his glass in his hands, letting the wine swirl around. “Poison and its remedy, available side by side! Are these the marvels of modernity, I wonder?”

Then he knocks the glass back in a single noisy gulp.

“Uh.” Husk looks from him, to the drained glass, to his barely-touched fries. He frowns. “... that usually goes the other way ‘round. Have you got a fever, or something?”

Without taking his glove off, Alastor feels his forehead with the back of his hand. “Hmm. Can’t say that I know.” He probably can’t even get a fever, this asshole. “But! It is likely all this giggle juice.”

He pours himself another glass, and repeats. Husk blinks at him. Is this the day the freaking _Radio Demon_ outdrinks him? _The fuck is going on. What are you trying to forget._

“What, you drank before coming here?”

“Some.”

Perhaps on the tail of his _talk_ with young Jérôme, he scolds without thinking, “On an empty stomach?”

Alastor snorts, tickled into some dry, bitter chuckle. “Well. As it happens, yes.”

“Well, I ain’t holding _your_ hair back. I’ve had enough puke fumes for tonight.”

The familiar laugh-track crackles choppily from Alastor’s mic. He taps it with a claw. “Husker, my dear friend, don’t be so harsh! After all, I’ve rescued this...” He trails off a moment, gesturing vaguely to the dingy pub, “... _show_ of yours, haven’t I?”

Husk lets out a derisive huff. Fishing for thanks, the snob bastard. “Hah, sure. And say, what’s it gonna cost me, eh? All of _this.”_ He flips up the lapel of his vest with a lazy stroke of his thumb. “Been wondering since you _volunteered.”_

“Oh, that.” A shrug. “I was thinking of writing this one off as a personal favor. You didn’t ask, and I originally came here just for a laugh… oh, but then!” He shoots to his feet, gesturing dramatically. “I see there... a fellow showman! There, on stage, alone and forsaken, without the _barest_ semblance of sound support!” A double, heartfelt fist-clench. “And oh, by the names of H.P. Davis and R.A. Fessenden, I could _not_ stand witness and just let it happen!”

Cheek propped up on his bottle, Husk waits for him to sit back down. With the patience of a gold panner, he filters through the antics to get to the substance. Something in what he said throws him off more than what he actually _said_ offends him.

Did Alastor... just say he was already in the audience?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first section of the chapter is a tiny homage to [Within The Wires](http://www.nightvalepresents.com/withinthewires) (Season 2)  
> -  
> The snippet Alastor plays says [With burning hands I’ll clasp the gold border of your starry cloak…]. For reasons.  
> -  
> Husk is referring to the Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam), and the federal company town built for its workers, Boulder City (!), during the Depression. The influx of lone worker dudes gave Vegas some good business.


	5. Marksman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tightropes and war tangents.

“Don’t call me a _showman_ ,” Husk mutters. He raises the bottle to his lips, shrugs right before sipping. “Would not have been a tragedy, anyway. If the show had been bad, I mean.”

In an eerily smooth sequence, Alastor blinks, tilts his head to the side, and serenely asks, “My dear Husk, are you a masochist?”

Right beer, wrong pipe. “I’m a _w—_ ”

“I’m merely curious to know if you enjoy making a fool of yourself in public, that’s all.” The Radio Demon’s trademark grin appears, that anglerfish abomination. “Because if that’s the case, I can _certainly_ be of assistance!”

“Oh, fuck off.” Husk shudders. There’s a part of him that wants to ask, _Who taught you that?!_ and that’s definitely _not_ a part he should listen to. “It’s just… magic is just a _hobby._ I do it for some cash, and for the shits and giggles. I don’t really give a fuck about the results.”

Damn. It sounds even more hollow, said out loud. A wide expanse of vulnerable underbelly exposed, ripe for the gutting. Husk tenses, bracing for it, for the knife in Alastor’s smile.

“Hmm. Perhaps I need a new hobby,” Alastor says instead, chin propped on the heel of one hand. “I’ve been quite _bored_ , lately.”

Husk can’t help but roll his eyes. _Oh no, whatever shall I do! I’ve become too good at everything!,_ the wording implies. The mention of the _boredom_ , however, sends some worries to sleep. That’s why Alastor was here, that’s why he did _all that._ No secret plan, no reckoning coming. He was just _bored,_ doing things on a whim. _Classic Alastor._ That’s good, it’s simple, it makes sense. All normal.

“So, anyway, yeah… thanks. For doing… _that,”_ Husk grunts, unclenching slightly, gratitude peeking through the cracks of his beer-mellowed hostility. “The thing you did. With the... _décor_ and the props. And the weird little piano.”

Alastor’s neck snaps in his direction with a pop. “That’s a Celesta! Authentic _Mustel_ , from my collection.”

“Yeah, that. It was… different.” Husk has to look away from him, retinas seared by the growing brightness of his tail-light eyes. Their shape persists as a neon-edged spot in his vision, following him everywhere he looks. “I had _fun,_ and just. Uh. I _appreciate_ it, there you have it. Fucker.”

The whole of Alastor perks up, shooting to his feet again as if the bench zapped him, a red blur at the corner of Husk’s eye.

“Ah-hah! Always thrilled to help out a friend, Husker, my dear pal!” Even the long, swept-up tufts of his hair seem to stand at attention. His smile, metaphorically and in always upsetting literality, finally reaches his eyes. “Simply _thrilled_ , I tell you!”

“‘Course you are.” Husk waits, lifting an eyebrow.

“Positively _ecstatic!”_

“Charitable soul, you are.”

“And maybe… you’ll owe me _just_ a teensy little bit.”

“There we go.”

“Just a small favor. First bloodless job I come across, I’ll ring you up first thing!” Alastor grins. Going very still, without moving his mouth or head, he plays a clip of Husk’s voice back to him, _Blood’s bad for my fucking nerves, lately._

Husk recoils, skin crawling. “Jesus, I hate when you do that. You cursed dictaphone.”

That manages to startle Alastor into an actual laugh. A nasal sort of chuckle, his shoulders shaking with it. The laugh-track still accompanies it, inseparable, with its clapping and whistling. Husk allows himself a grin of his own: the bastard sure knows how to make a guy feel like he landed a good joke, damn him.

“But you’re a half-decent sound designer, I’ll give you that,” he admits. “I thought all you ever did was talk.”

Alastor waves a hand, as if giving his words a lazy swat. “Hah! I’ve worn many hats in the radio business, in my years. They don’t just _hand you_ a talk show, you know.” Then, with affected gravity, he adds, “But I wholeheartedly accept your backhanded compliment, and pay it back to you _tenfold!_ ”

“Much better than Jérôme, at least,” Husk snickers. “In your face, Jérôme!”

“ _Haha_ , yes! Eat my _dust,_ Jérôme!” A light punch in the air. “... who is Jérôme?”

“Suck a dick,” grumbles Jérôme, on break a few tables away, buried in his phone.

Surprisingly, there’s no need to try and stop Alastor from cutting the idiot’s afterlife short. Husk notices only when he feels the tension in himself, his hands ready to go up in a placating gesture that now has no outlet or purpose.

Alastor has gone pensive again, staring off into some unseen horizon.

“Or maybe I’ll just take care of that for you, huh?” Husk says anyway, because he had it prepared so might as well. He points to the back of Alastor’s head, the V of close-shaven hair now long enough to touch the top of his high collar. “You’re getting shaggy again.”

Red-tipped fingers rise and slick the edge of the undercut down, riffling through it like wind on short red grass. “Ah. Already.”

Husk sneers a little, but without real malice. “It’s your fault for picking such a high-maintenance haircut.” He adds, “I’ll do it soon. And we’ll call it even.”

He, too, has worn many hats in his—much longer, thank you—years. Skilled hands have many uses, if one’s not picky.

“That ought to be bloodless enough,” Alastor concedes. _“If_ you’re careful.”

 _Why does it matter,_ Husk thinks, a little stung. _W_ _hat’s a guy with a razor t_ _o your powers?_ Trying to keep defensiveness out of his tone, and letting it all in via his frown, he half-snarls, “I _always_ am.”

It’s reassuring in a way, to keep tally even after all these years. Keeps everything in place, all the lines where they’re supposed to fall. If they’re even and stay even, the balance of power will hold. A perpetual standstill suits Husk just fine. After all, he is one of the few that refuse to walk the tightrope of Alastor’s good graces. Or at least, so he likes to think.

“It might be some time before I come across a job suited for you, after all. Say, Husker,” Alastor says then, pitching his voice a little different, “what would you say, if I... made myself scarce for a little while?”

“Best news I’ve heard all day,” Husk spits, looking straight ahead, still in a ribbing mood. “Why, planning to skip town or something?”

He hears a faint, wistful sigh. “I’ve been thinking… maybe it’s time to retire off to the countryside. Spend some time in...” Another vague gesture, “... _nature_ , and so on.”

Husk knows exactly what he means by that. He turns and gives him a long look.

“In _nature.”_

“Yes.”

“To the _Village.”_

“Where else?”

“… why _the fuck_ do you wanna go sing with a bunch of cannibal weirdos, all of a sudden?”

Another long sigh. “I tire of the city,” Alastor says, wording it like some weary Lord about to send his butler packing to leave his town house _posthaste,_ seized by the urge to go wander a moor in his robe, or something. “And I haven’t been around people that share my interests in… well. In a while.”

Husk lets out a long, unfiltered groan. He has heard this before: it’s not uncommon for Alastor to get these disappearing itches. Husk has not seen him or heard of him at all for years at a time, in the past. Everyone needs their alone time, he guesses. Most peaceful years he can remember.

“I’m hoping for a return of _inspiration,_ if I spend some time around people I can _truly_ be myself with.”

Husk returns to looking straight at the wall. A vague ache starts, deep in his gut. A cold, queasy twist that has nothing to do with the drinking. _Huh._ Must be the gravy.

“Fuck off and move there, then.”

There’s an imperceptible movement next to him. The only reason he feels it is because they’re sitting so unnervingly close. Whatever it was, Alastor masks it by taking a long sip. “I… find that it lacks intellectual stimulation, after a while.”

Husk pictures it. Alastor and his glaring reds against the rolling hills and quaint cottages. Blindingly complementary in that greenery, stark against the clotheslines heavy with white linens. Bedsheets and bonnets and bibs, bellied out like sails, bloodstains rubbed off with salt and cold spring water. All tinged a bit yellow—he’s not sure they have washing soda over there. It's not the same, but makes him think of the smell of iodine.

And all that _singing_... Alastor might have a higher tolerance than most, but not even him is deranged enough to stand it indefinitely.

“Yeah, no shit.”

“I’ll see after the Cleanse, perhaps.”

“‘Course.” Husk lets out a derisive laugh, uncaring of the bare nastiness in it. “Couldn’t miss your favorite sport, could you?”

“Indeed,” Alastor echoes. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Something in his voice. There’s always a lot going on with Alastor’s voice, but something in it sets a crawling feeling down Husk’s spine. The hairs on his nape and back rise, his grasp on his bottle tightens. Trying to put aside his body gearing up for a fight, he lets the cold dampness of condensation ground him. There are coasters on the table, he notices. They weren’t there before.

The worst part of a Cleanse are never the blood and screams. No, just like in wars above the ground, the scariest part are the volunteers.

It happens, to get like this, when dealing with eternity in a place like Hell. Every year, when the countdown on the big clock tower goes down into the single digits, there is always some demon that starts talking about being _tired_ of it all.

Not everyone that lands in Pentagram City stays, keeping up the pretenses and trudging through this parody of life. Some wander off, go to test the limits of their immortality. Husk knows that some find them.

He just never considered that Alastor might end up among them.

* * *

War has a thousand ways to make you forget what you’re doing.

It starts way before, back home, with the posters and the newspapers and your neighbour’s whispers, _Skipped out on the two big ones, have you?_ Then the training that sticks with you, and you aren’t fighting people anyway, you’re fighting _The Enemy_ , real big ugly thing without a face. You learn, you eat it all up, you’re a kid again. Everything’s easy, when you’re taking orders. That’s the appeal of it, isn’t it? The power, the righteousness, the ready answers.

_(There is no wonder here.)_

You were never a man of faith but at your blindest, you feel that there’s finally something you believe in, a lighthouse on the aimless horizon of your life.

You’d go to war for it. They send you.

You make friends and don’t think you’ll lose them all. They like that you do tricks, that you’re older. (Like their dad, back home.) They like that you have nimble fingers and a pack of cards always stashed somewhere _(Bible, Almanac, and Prayer Book)_. They like that you shoot fast and straight, makes them feel secure.

You lived a hard life, but nothing can prepare you for what it means to kill.

You do it at a distance, mostly. But not always. Seen up close, it’s an instant, no different than the rest of time. The arbitrary nature of it—who could ever decide this? _The Enemy_ is just a man again, and he would have done the same. But you did it first. It’s your soul that starts to chip away.

Some of your new friends have strange names. _Thorazine, Darvon, Dexedrine_. Others, too, names you haven’t even stopped to read. _Don’t freak out on us, Marksman. If you start to feel off, take a pep pill._ You’re in your fifties and all you see are little boys killing each other. You see them do worse, too. _Keep going. Don’t get crazy. Here, take one more—_ _recon_ _mission’s a long one. Keep going. It’s not the time_ _now_ _, don’t look, don’t think about it._

Then they make you try and starve out _The Enemy,_ spray you all with defoliant. _Shit’s harmless, haha, unless you’re a tree_. Humans are the funniest animals; when it’s life or death, we always crack a laugh. It’s death this time. Lots of it. It’s there to this day, sinking into the ground. It wasn’t you personally, perhaps. But you still breathed, and did nothing.

The noise it made when that lighthouse came down, even death cannot shake off the shell-shock of it, your ears still ringing. Maybe that’s why your Damnation gave you feline ears. A cat’s nose too, for those iodine nightmares you try to drown, that pool-sick stench that clings on for days.

They send you home decorated, with your head full of mud-stench and jungle shadows, your body rotting from the inside out. Your blood cells got confused on what their job was, like everything else. Your old companions dropped like flies, one after the other. What a prize.

In a couple of years you’re dead too, that last year a gap in your memory, a sinkhole of too-far-gone and soiled sheets. Who knows what the fuck your death certificate says—down in Hell, all you need is your Landing date. 

War has a thousand ways to make you forget you’re ruining lives. Hell has a thousand ways to make you remember it.

When you hurt someone you don’t stop to look. If you stop, you’ll see it’s just some bastard like you, neither of you wants to be there, and then what happens? If you stop and look, the illusion crumbles, the lighthouse goes down.

_(Keep the secrecy. Don’t reveal the trick.)_

Do it all smiling, do it all without sleeping, do it all and don’t you dare come back an addict. God, what a fucking disgrace.

Look at your hands, the heart-shapes on them. The arpeggio of clicks to reload your M21, your hands remember it like a music score. You built a life on those nimble hands, your tricks and your good aim. You built your damnation on the same.

Somewhere in there, there’s a big fucking metaphor, you just need to look.

_(Don’t look. Keep going. Don’t look.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Auguste Mustel is the inventor of the Celesta (1886). He died in '19 so (if he's in Hell) Al might or might not have tracked him down and charmed him into making him a custom one.


	6. Atto III, scena 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Husk fits the pieces together.

The cologne is making Husk sneeze.

The difference in smell blindsides him, sudden, as he sits and tries to trace back all the ways he’s just made an ass of himself. It’s no easy task, while buzzed, and the smell kept distracting him and there he is now, noticing it. And once he’s noticed it, it’s hard to believe he’s _just now_ noticing it.

In turn, Alastor notices his wrinkle-nosed frown. “Something the matter?”

“What, you don’t smell that?”

“Smell what?”

To put it politely, Alastor’s sense of smell always... left a bit to be desired. Maybe it decayed over time, overloaded with that swampside abattoir fragrance that walks with him, damp and heavy, like it has its own presence. Maybe it’s just an unfair comparison with feline senses.

Bottom line is, this pungent musky shit is _not_ the evil Husk is used to, and it’s giving him a headache.

“If it’s a new cologne, fucking ditch it. Smells like shit.”

“Oh, _that_!” Alastor tut-tuts, critically. “It _is_ rather strong, isn’t it?”

Husk finally lets go of the sneeze he was holding. “Yeah. Chemical as fuck. Reminds me of iodine, of all things.”

Alastor magics it off himself in a swift gesture, as if wiping his neck with an invisible cloth. The pungent tang instantly stops stabbing at Husk’s nose, and he inhales deeply.

“Better?”

Husk grunts affirmatively. The usual coppery wet wood scent is like an embrace of familiarity.

One good thing about Alastor, at least, is that he’s thick-skinned. You can tell the guy anything, even that he stinks, and he hardly ever takes offense. You’d think fucking kid gloves wouldn’t be required in Hell, and yet. Even here, turns out, not having to watch his language and control his temper all the time is a special kind of freedom.

It’s only in the middle of this thought that he realises he’s been sitting there and breathing in that good old swamp smell for an awkward length of time. And that Alastor has been letting him.

He clears his throat, leaning away. “So, uh… were you going for a what, a change of style, or something?”

“Oh, it wasn’t mine.” Alastor, casual as ever, idly flicks something from under his nail. “I just didn’t notice, until you pointed it out.”

“Huh?”

“I was on a date, last night.”

Husk, to his own credit, only chokes on his drink a _little_ bit. “A d— _coughfuckdammit—_ a _date_?”

Red alert—red alert. Dangerous territory, landmines everywhere. All of Husk’s senses are set on edge, alarms blaring. Tales of murder and dismemberment? Sure, grab a drink. Alastor’s mysterious love life, or lack thereof? God, fuck, he’s not sure this bar is stocked enough for this. He’s not sure his brain has the resources. Alastor _dates?_ He’s getting tunnel vision.

“And… how did that work out?” he asks anyway, because he hates himself. His palms grow slick again, he almost loses his grip on the bottle.

Alastor’s chest moves in a sigh, but the sound that comes out is akin to a feedback whistle. Husk’s eardrums pulse, whiskers twitching. _Shit. Oh shit._

“Could have been better, I daresay.” Alastor looks away, has the gall to steeple his fingers. Like someone that’s _nervous,_ intermittently letting his claw-tips click together in the most irritating way possible. “Had I in fact known _beforehand_ that I was on a date, most likely.”

_Click._

“Huh.” Husk tips his hat back into place. Represses the urge to slap Alastor’s hands. “Hate when that happens.”

 _Click. Click. Click._ A chuckle, but only a small listless thing. Not promising in the slightest. Husk hasn’t seen it too often, this version of him. Alastor does not get _nervous._

He is an obnoxious sober, an insufferable tipsy, and a rather morose drunk. But this? What is _this?_ This particular hollow smile, these avoidant eyes, these skitter-off hands. The familiar is uncharted territory, and Husk didn’t come prepared to hack his way through the jungle.

The claws are still clicking, and the urge to grab them and make them stop seizes all of Husk’s heightened senses. He doesn’t do it, of course. He’s not a moron.

“We went to the opera. We saw the _Turandot_.”

Husk whistles, and toasts with his empty drink “Cheers to that. How many riddles did he get right?”

He’s playing with fire, right there. First off, he assumed it’s a guy, because of the shitty cologne. He refuses to give this line of reasoning more thought than that. He then not only alluded to some kinky opera roleplay, but also… he revealed he knows _some_ about the opera. Two out of three are deadly offenses, by the tightrope law. The third is a death-wish for a number of other reasons. Husk moves his feet off the sweaty footprints he’s leaving under the table, opens a fresh bottle with a flick of his claw. Deep down, he’s a bit too far in to care.

Luckily, the Radio Demon was only half-tuned in, and doesn’t seem to have picked up on the double entendre. Small mercies.

“Friends still go to the opera together, don’t they?”

 _Do they?_ Husk has no idea. He doesn’t know what friends do. He doesn’t know what you do on a date. In fact, he feels, he’s never known a single thing in his entire life.

“I... guess?” he manages.

“So, he walked me back to my place, as we discussed the production and so on,” Alastor is saying, his voice set as if for a _storytime_ segment. There is no mention of a name, of how they met, anything of the sort. There is only clicking, and Husk’s inner monologue short-circuiting to, _Shit,_ _it really was a guy._

_Click. Click. Click._

_Be still,_ he wants to beg _, let’s talk about something else._ Red fingers on ivory piano keys, felt mallets on metal tines. _Isn’t it odd, that I’ve known you so long, and never heard you play?_ The novelty of it, the surprise. It was magical, forgive the pun. _What else have you mastered, in your time here, what are the other things that don’t keep you entertained anymore? What else do you do for fun, save for wandering the city in search of_ _something interesting_ _, like some sort of lost pinstriped ghoul?_

_Tell me some. Tell me all. Let’s change the subject._

_(Please.)_

“I was arguing my point about the pacing in Act Three— _I saw it only one time before, mind you_ , I told him—oh, it was at the _Metropolitan Opera House_ , the brand new one? In case you were wondering. They sent me over to report, and—”

Husk briefly fantasizes of swatting him with a wing to make him stay on topic. If only.

“—and oh, I had the most wonderful time. With Master Serafin’s conduction and Madame Jeritza in the titular role, and _oh,_ the costume design…! It was well worth the travel, and enduring New York in November. Would have loved to see it in French at the _Tulane_ , but it did not get there in time to… ah, where was I?”

When he talks animatedly, Alastor has the tendency to inch closer until he’s pushing people off their seat. Husk grips the edge of the bench, shifting back to his spot as discreetly as he can. He feels the friction of fabric on fabric on fur with alarming intensity.

“Act three. Pacing.”

“Right! Yes, my point was, I remembered _Turandot_ up above ground being just about as bloody as this one, _but_ a lot less… oh, how to put it?”

Husk makes a resigned gesture. “... raunchy?”

Through means of demonic transformative powers, productions in Hell often end up a few degrees saucier than their Earth equivalents. Authors, if still around, tend to protest or spearhead these rewritings in equal measures.

And Alastor, who has a taste for all violence except the raunchy kind, nods and scrunches up his face in snub-nosed disgust.

“Precisely! And I say to him, I say, _why would you add unnecessary scenes, instead of fixing the pacing issue that was there to begin with?_ Would be about time, it’s been almost a century! And he was _disagreeing_ with me.” He takes a dismissive sip of his drink. _“Insistently.”_

“Yeah, uh. Unforgivable,” Husk sighs. “And then?”

He’s developing a theory of what is going on. Alastor _hates_ it when he thinks he’s found a new _friend,_ but then something absolutely inconsequential happens—and now they must die. Tightrope walkers, the lot of them. He breathes out, relaxes slightly.

“Then, certain that I could make the man see _reason,_ I invited him up for a nightcap! So that we may further our fascinating _tête-à-tête._ ”

The tension seizes Husk again, so quick he can feel the cramps forming. Alarms blare again in his mind, back snapping straight. He’s pretty sure he just pulled a muscle. “... right.”

He can just picture it. Not that he wants to… but he can. Willing or not, you find out a lot in four decades of acquaintanceship. He knows that Alastor is a decent host. He probably offered a sip of something good—his _Courvoisier_ stash, or maybe some _Ola Dubh—_ he probably conjured up some sweets, two steaming cups of strong black coffee. Set it up all nice on his cherrywood table. All the while bouncing around, fluttery and high-energy, gushing about opera. _Yeah, all right._ Other guy, poor misguided soul, most likely got the last wrong idea of his afterlife.

“It had just been _so long_ since I had someone to share theater with.” A twitch in the smile, as a red-tipped finger pokes the charred bits of potato left in the basket, pushing them like tiny brown ships on a sea of greasy paper. “At some point, something concerning this sentiment… might _not_ have come across as intended, I think.”

“H… _huh_.”

Shit, now what? Here on this bench, with Alastor shoving him off the seat by inches—what the fuck is he supposed to _say_ to that? Orchardist’s hound is a bad look for a cat.

A simple, _what did you expect_? Or more elaborate, questioning, _did you sit by him like you’re trying to crawl into his lap, did you talk the way you always talk—with the pet-names and all your touchy-feely bullshit? Guy thought it was fair game to get handsy, how are you surprised?_ Or... say nothing at all.

What did this opera enthusiast newbie that went home with the freakin’ _Radio Demon_ even look like? Why didn’t any of his friends stop him? Husk’s hands are wet, his fur and feathers are puffing up as his skin itches with irritation. _Dog demon._ For some reason, every time he happens to imagine Alastor caught in some uncomfortable situation, it’s always a dog demon.

A maddening incongruence of factors: someone of Alastor’s status, so _embarrassed_ over something so inconsequential. The fact that it’s all over _opera_ , of all things. The fact that someone who’s clearly a _nobody,_ some poor bastard that must have died _yesterday_ to be _that_ fucking stupid, thought he had any right to—

( _Take a breath. Hold it. Take the plunge._ Ask direct, like a band-aid ripped, _Alright, how handsy are we talking, exactly?_ Greet your final death with both middle fingers up.)

Save for a couple selected topics, Husk never had much interest in keeping up with living world news as they trickle down into Hell. Same shit as usual, say the newly dead. Lots of unfairness, lots of mess. Always some new war. _Days of our Lives_ is still on. _KENO_ broadcasts in Spanish now.

Despite this, he has still managed to get himself into some altercations with younger patrons at the bar, over his—what was it?— _problematic language_ , or whatever. Nowadays it’s all _x-words_ and _y-slurs,_ can’t call anything with its name anymore. Not even when you don’t mean it in a bad way. 

Back in his day, when someone went asking for trouble and found it, you told them to their face. How else is anyone supposed to learn any damn thing? Not by calling it _victim-blame_ , or whatever nonsense. Bullshit. Was it _victim-blame_ when he got sent home and found the bits of his life did not match at the edges anymore—the debt, the city, the ring, everything coming apart—and all he could do was stare for days on end into the bottom of a bottle, like the piece of shit he was? No, that was all him, he didn’t need anyone else doing it for him. He victim-blamed _himself_ , thank you very much.

And Alastor, most times, behaves in ways that undeniably go asking for trouble.

Not that trouble fazes him in the slightest, the overpowered little bastard. Your everyday psychopath is affable and charming, at least. Can hide in a crowd. Alastor has some sort of visceral anti-charisma that sets off people’s fight or flight response. Most of those he meets seem to instantly want to throttle him.

But one can’t help but wonder… did he get in trouble that way a lot, in that short before-life he lived...? Fuck it, he’s not _remotely_ drunk enough to start down this lane.

“And so, after a _swift_ clarification, he sort of… looked around for a little while.” Case in fucking point, Alastor shifts his legs and catches Husk’s shins between his ankles. “Admiring the _décor,_ I’d assume.”

Husk tries and fails to suppress a snort. Man, the look on this guy’s face when he realized what kind of place he willingly walked into. Maybe, he tentatively starts to hope, _maybe_ it all ends there. With antler décor. A misunderstanding set straight. An almost-friend sent on his way in the night, after a non-date at the opera.

“He didn’t seem very keen to talk about the production anymore, however. He asked if I was going to put a _curse_ on him.” The grip tightens, polished dress shoes digging slightly into Husk’s calves. “You know, Husker, sometimes I worry I have single-handedly given Voodoo a bad name.”

“T’was likely a team effort,” Husk offers. “You, and the Halperin brothers.”

In the beat that passes, Alastor’s only reaction is to magic his drink again. “Oh, I _loathe_ that talkie,” he says darkly, smile stiff.

The used-to-be-wine he pours is now an intense amber hue, and Husk can smell cayenne pepper, a whiff of gunpowder, and the distinctive burnt caramel notes of Southern rum. _Well, damn._

When it boils down to it, like some of the best cocktails, Master Husk’s secret recipe for peaceful coexistence—and occasional work association—with the Radio Demon is made of three ingredients only: 1) Mind your damn business; 2) Never touch anything or anywhere without asking first; and 3) Never, under any circumstances, _ever_ let him know the title of that song you can’t stand. That’s about it. Sometimes he thinks about hunting for a book deal.

He doesn’t know half the stuff Alastor is involved in, and he’s not in any hurry to amend that. Based on his Peace Cocktail, when everything is too confusing, the only thing to address is the one that makes sense. There’s always one, even in the Radio Demon’s chaotic surroundings. If you know where to look.

So, Husk lets out a long groan, stretches, and asks, “D’ya need help with the body then, is that what’s going on?”

Whenever there’s a kill, there’s always clean up work. For all his _manners_ and pressed suits and immaculately starched collars, Alastor is terrible at actually eating over his damn plate.

“Hmm? Why, no! No body whatsoever.” A sharp fingertip draws an eerie wail from the wet edge of his wine-glass. Alastor immediately plays back a recording of the noise, testing it a couple of times. “I was not in the mood, I believe I mentioned it.”

Husk’s ear flicks back and forth. “Thought you meant you already ate,” he says defensively. “So where’s the guy now, then?”

A hum, a half-shrug. An eye that wanders, looking for a window to glance out of. A smile that shows traces of tension, just for a moment, undetectable to the untrained eye.

“He might still be over at mine. I have yet to check.”

Husk’s sharp, trained eyes stare, unblinking, for a solid thirty seconds. “Alastor,” he says, “are you out of your mind?”

“Oh?”

“Why on _earth_ would you leave a complete _stranger_ —did this bootleg Calaf hit you upside the head or something?”

He lifts his hand, aiming it at those scrambled deer-brains with the certainty that Alastor will move away before it actually touches him. Instead, Alastor tilts his face down, offering the crown of his head for inspection.

“Not that I can remember, no,” is the worrying reply. “But do check, and let me know.”

Not only is Husk’s hand allowed into the bubble of personal space that Alastor believes he alone is entitled to, but the bastard straight up _headbutts_ his palm. Husk stares, speechless, at his hand cradled between those mesquite thorns that pass for antlers, his fingers sinking into the yield of red hair he’s recruited to trim once in a while.

Alastor, there in yesterday’s clothes, smelling like another man’s bad cologne. Alastor, avoiding his own house, planning to skip town. Alastor and that strange, pensive mood, his eyes that reveal more than he’d like.

Despite their long acquaintanceship, Husk has never known exactly what Alastor’s _problem_ is. If he’s Just Like _That_ , or if he’s gone through _something_ that made him.

(Oh, you’d _hate_ that, wouldn’t you? Having been _made_ —anyone or anything claiming your Damnation as their handiwork. A Stirnerist, that’s what you are, and you don’t even know it.)

But perhaps, in the end, it might just be that he was raised Catholic.

“Uhm,” Husk manages to articulate, eloquent. He pulls away with a shrug and his hand tingling, baffled, then reaches over and moves the rum out of reach.

“All those songs on the radio, Husker,” Alastor says, low, a little uncertain. “The opera, the plays. It’s all played up for entertainment, isn’t it?”

There’s a reason why Husk is one of the few that can beat the Radio Demon at card games.

“The tragedy, the _passion_ , the madness… exaggerations, making the mundane interesting! What would the world be without them? Oh, but sometimes…” He trails off, voice growing hard to hear, as though his volume dial were turned all the way to low. “Sometimes… I wish the rest of it made a lick of sense, too.”

For starters, Husk has the guts to play to win. Secondly, consider this game of uneven odds. The weight of a smile that shows all its ragged edges. Husk and his panic-heart, his slippery footprints. His eyes on forbidden scriptures, heavily guarded.

“R-right,” he grunts through his parched throat. He drains his own drink in one long gulp.

For all his obnoxiousness, Alastor is a private man. He wears that unmoving grey mask of a face, acts impervious to all emotions a smile can’t convey. If the smile is there, things can’t be any worse than usual.

“I am just… so _bored_.” Alastor’s voice crackles with interference, showing its raspy undertones, like a texture you can hear. Felt mallets on metal tines. “The _vulgarity_ of it all. So terribly, hatefully, wretchedly _bored_.”

Thirdly, anyone really good at cards is a bit of a magician: a tell is a tell, and a cold read is a cold read. Husk excels at cards, and Alastor is the anti-Buster Keaton: expressive eyes are always the curse of a stoic.

_(You just need to look. Just need to listen.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being Husk is s u f f e r i n g  
> also, having out of touch grandpa moments but mostly in your head.
> 
> also a ton of references because why the f not.  
> -  
> The bit of Act Three of the Turandot they are discussing is [here](https://semprelibera.altervista.org/giacomo-puccini/turandot/principessa-di-morte/). Reading through the lyrics, you can guess why Al would be a tad unsetteled.  
> -  
> The 'talkie' Alastor mentions is _White Zombie_ (1932), one of the first instances of 'spooky movie voodoo' that contributed to the idea people have of it nowadays.


	7. ōsuzumebachi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's just trying to say, the pacing is bad.

Husk hates _each_ of his senses, individually.

If they had faces, he’d slap them. If they had guts, he’d punch them. If they had asses, he'd kick them.

His cat-eyes, sharp and peeled open—in the light or far from it, no change, catching all that others comfortably overlook. Cat-ears that pick every minute shift apart. Cat-whiskers that codify the intangible into physical. His cat-nose and tongue, that unravelled the situation at hand in all its stupidity.

But what he hates the most about them is how useless alcohol really is. This used to be much easier, in the before-life. Numbness was a bad place to escape to, but at least there was one.

He lets out a long exhale, more groan than sigh. Under the table he thumbs through his pack of cards, shuffling unsure. He has an idea, but it’s risky. If he goes for it, he digs his own grave three feet deeper. He shouldn’t. It’s not worth it—not for one of those spells of _boredom_. He really shouldn’t.

… but goddamn, he’s never heard the bastard sound like _that_.

* * *

Hell does not have answers for you.

Or for anyone, shit, nothing personal.

No, what Hell does is put a lot about _death_ into perspective. Husk had been a lifetime gambler, but when death had come for him, he had not challenged it to a rigged game. No chess, no poker, not even faro. When death came for him, he wept in relief.

_(It’s not dying. It’s what comes after.)_

Death, the great leveler. Almost-all end up in the same place, don’t they? Gotta be real fucking special to go to Heaven, these days. _If anyone goes at all,_ whisper the bravest and the most desperate, in the secret depths of themselves.

After almost half a century there, Husk’s moral compass has lost true North.

Killing deliberately and for fun is still pretty fucked up, most would agree. The epitome of fucked up, perhaps. The official Worst. Indenturing a soul is also up there. But past that, is murder-cannibalism that _much_ worse than just-murder? You kinda get used to it, after a while, if it’s not the worst you can imagine. Shit, it’s not even the worst Husk has _seen._

He’d seen Hell already in his before-life. He’s seen it in the mouths of drunk gamblers when their wives came get them at the casino. In the pitiless hands of fellow soldiers. He saw Hell in the children of Saigon, recoiling at the sight of a uniform. And he’s seen Hell in the mirror, in that stranger with haunted eyes looking back at him, trying to convince him they were the same.

And all this fucked up shit that happens right on Earth, human to human—all of it is about the same in the eyes of Heaven. Barely questionable or rotten to the core, they all go to the same place.

Squandered a week’s pay at the slot machines, let your family go hungry? Hell. Killed your husband and fed his remains to your colony of stray cats? Hell. Moral corruption of any sort? Hell. Judgement’s dealt, you’re officially certified Scum of Humanity, whatever you did. God has given up on you, you can stop trying so _hard,_ finally. Go, you’re free, be your worst self. Make it everyone else’s problem.

That’s why people that _lose their faith_ always made him laugh. What, did you think that _you_ , personally, had a special contract with God? That—to you and only you and the lucky ones you picked as yours—nothing bad would ever happen?

Did you think _God_ had your back?

And then, some people are just born ill-suited for a normal boring life, that’s a fact. You see them, running headfirst into shit, trying to break free from mortal constraints, that morality so tight with all its _rules_ —unbound by guilt and empathy and fear of death, thinking bigger and darker and _freer._ Is it better, to be like that, to feel so little? Does it make you happier?

_(Does it make it bearable?)_

So really, he can’t blame Alastor for making Hell into his playground. Made for it, took to it _like a duck to water_ , the saying goes. To have that kind of power, with no morals to hold you back, and no repercussions to come bite you in the ass later—if someone could resist self-indulging, they’d be a saint. And that would just defeat the fucking purpose, wouldn’t it?

He knows that Alastor is brutal, like Hell is. The bastard has it all: powerful magic, fame and status, remarkably human-like appearance. He does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. He’s never claimed a title, the very concept of nobility curling his grin to a sneer. He could be disgustingly rich, if he gave a shit about money or land. He has no vices, no attachments, no weaknesses.

If he were like Alastor, Husk would consider being in Hell as the price to pay for complete freedom. More than once, he had found himself wondering, _are you really being punished here? If you’re Damned, where is it? Where is your suffering?_ He’d resented him for that. He’d hated his fucking guts.

It’s a common enough sentiment. Demons respect only what they fear, and oh, they fear him alright. There’s no saying that goes, _like an ōsuzumebachi in a beehive_ , but it would be more accurate. He hit the ground running when he Landed, asserted dominance, and never stopped. Chaos-bringer that cannot be controlled via usual means, Alastor unifies the other Overlords in shared execration.

Husk has heard the stories. Husk has made some of the stories, too, after he found himself another lighthouse to fight for.

Yet, in other contemplative moments much like this one, Husk has heard him say that perhaps he had been _a touch_ _hasty._ Should have taken his time a little more, when he first arrived, played nice a little longer. That he got a little ahead of himself testing his new power, played all his strongest cards way too early in the game.

His fame has reached so far and so fast that only the newly-dead and truly desperate make deals nowadays. Too many jobs to sub-contract, too many _boring_ demands.

_(All so... mundane, so unfocused. Aimless! Oh, Husker, it’s all so boring.)_

Most of all, he seemed disappointed that nothing offered the kind of _challenge_ he yearns for. What kind of Hell was he expecting, one is bound to wonder, that this shit isn’t brutal enough for him?

But Husk is starting to see it a little, the tragedy of him. The subtle cruelty of his Damnation. Much like Husk’s hatefully sharp senses make him crave numbness, Alastor’s soul languishes through dulled ones in its desperation to _feel._ This formidable creature, too, gets lonely, restless, consumed with boredom.

And really, what kind of mad world is this, where the fucking _Radio Demon_ , of all people, hesitates to reject unwanted advances?

* * *

“So, thing is.”

Husk finds the right order through the cards by touch alone.

Seems that he’s doing this, in the end. Mind made. Fuck consequences, that’s a problem for Sober Husk. Serves him right. He waits for Alastor’s head to give a light tilt in his direction, ensuring Husk that he holds his attention. _Deep breath. Hold it. Go._

“Right, second half of Act III was pieced together by that other guy, wasn’t it?” Husk puts on the table a two, a three, a Jack. “Franco— _whatshisface_?”

And Alastor finally looks up from the slow-swirling depths of his glass, eyebrows climbing up to his hairline. He stares, near-motionless, blinks once and his pupils catch the low light, bloom oil-spill black within their thin crimson rings.

He murmurs, “... Alfano?”

Husk has to tear his gaze away to stay focused. He clicks his fingers, reshuffles.

“Him! That’s what dying gets you: the _Cyrano_ guy tries to scrapbook together what you’ve left—all thirty-six sketches on twenty-three pages—and screws up the pacing of the whole thing.”

He works fast, pulling cards, not thinking too much. Roles are assigned, Kings and Queens and Jacks. Number cards. There’s no way for it to come out perfect, but hey—that’s the magic of improv. The wonder, the spontaneity, the freedom of it.

“Then Liu fucking _kills herself_ , and Prince Calaf just _pounces_ on Turandot. Just goes for it, right away!” Remaining Aces, pulled and scattered. “That other bitch ain’t even cold yet. _La tua gloria risplende nell’incanto del primo bacio, del primo pianto!_ Fuck off.”

Fast patter. Don’t stop, don’t think. _Don’t look at him._

“And after that, instead of kneeing him in the nuts, Turandot’s suddenly _discovers love_ and is into it? Give me a _fucking_ break, Franco.”

The Two of Spades, triumphantly smacked on the table, hits the wood with a _thwack_. Almost. Almost done. Husk is breathing a little hard, tries his best to calm the fuck down. His pulse is racing, as if he’s just done something incredibly reckless. Maybe he has. He can’t look at Alastor’s face yet, can’t take in the look in his eyes just yet.

Even in Hell, the world comes to you if you’re serving it drinks. Husk doesn’t know all this because he likes opera. He knows it because he bartends, and got to listen to a few stagehands complain about the outdated chauvinism of it all, back when the production started. Blasphemous things, he thought then, going round in circles again.

“If you ask me, they should have let Zandonai finish it instead,” he concludes, pulling a couple last number cards. “But hey, what do I know. Back in ‘26, I was still in knee pants.”

There. _And now we’ll see._ Naturally, he didn’t use the whole deck. A trick like this is hard enough to improvise as is. But hopefully it’s enough. It’s _something_ at least.

Husk made it plenty clear at the start of their acquaintanceship: he was never gonna tapdance to keep Alastor entertained. If Alastor was in the habit of killing off people when they started to bore him, he’d said, he better haul ass and kill him immediately.

But Alastor had not. In a twist that bites its own tail, he said that Husk’s refusal to entertain was in itself _quite_ entertaining. Husk had been too drunk at the time to bother with the double negatives, and just raised his glass to that.

Might be the alcohol, this time too. It has to be. Because the look on Alastor’s face when Husk finally brings himself to peer up at his reaction is something… it sure is _something_.

Surprise. Surprise? Could be. _Maybe he hated it._ Wide scarlet eyes, _shining_. Alastor glows all red in the candlelight, like a tacky Christmas ornament. Fucking _shining!_ Red red _red_. There’s so much fucking red you stop seeing the beauty of it. Must be part of his Damnation, that he got cat senses but his vision stayed trichromatic. See all this shit in full color, even in the dark. He has to look away again after just a moment, eyes burning, stomach in knots.

“I-I mean,” Husk stammers, sweating all over the cards still in his hands, “I mean, a twist like _that_ so late in the thing, it just doesn’t fit, does it? Feels off, all rushed. Just _wrong_. Am I right?”

“Oh, _Husk…_!”

Neck fur puffing up just hearing his name gasped out like that, Husk barely notices the red hands caging his face.

“Damn,” he manages to squeak out, feeling like a hollow-stemmed dandelion between those razor-sharp claws. Maybe he’ll be blown away, the pieces of him dispersed in the wind. “You’re _really_ drunk.”

“I am~!” Alastor cries, delighted, sounding more like himself than he has all night. 

The clasping hands close in, pulling Husk’s face effortlessly forward. And Husk goes, lost ship to lighthouse, not a hint of resistance. Alastor leans in close, head tilted, opens his anglerfish mouth, and nips him on the nose.

“ _MOTHERFU—_ ”

The shock of pain spears through Husk’s face like lightning, nerve-struck. For a moment, the peace cocktail gives way to blind instinct.

It’s only when he sees Alastor _flying_ across the room, laugh-track dopplering unnaturally, that he realises he’s hauled the bastard over his head and _thrown him_.

He freezes. “... _shit_.”

An instant later, the Radio Demon materialises back into his spot next to him, shadows sloughing off him like a sheer-black snakeskin. Husk can barely breathe in the stillness of his terror.

It takes him a little while to realise the other has been laughing his ass off the entire time.

“... Alastor…” he tries, rubbing his nose on the back of his hand, unsure if he should stay mad or be the one to apologise. “Alastor, what the fuck.”

Alastor sounds like he can barely breathe too, his voice gone all squeaky and metallic with hysterics. “Oh, oh, priceless, absolutely priceless! What a throw, a _bona fide_ cannon!”

He is barely audible over the full-volume laugh-track and, for some reason, the high-pitched whistle of a kettle coming to boil. The ultrasound is a painful throb in Husk’s eardrums.

“My good Husker, a Howitzer for an arm! Oh, what a sharpshooter, what a Marksman!”

He… does not seem to be mad at all. Husk keeps rubbing his nose, baffled, eyes watering from the pain.

_(Even your affection hurts.)_

“And, and, and the _trick_ you just did, simply marvellous! Even sitting right next to you, rapt in contemplation, I could not see at all how you did it!” Alastor claps, sounding ecstatic. “You truly transform, when you do magic! So bright and lively! A true master of the stage. I _like_ it.”

It’s terribly obvious that apologising for biting him does not occur to him in the slightest. But it’s fine. Husk wasn’t expecting him to. Rather, as he watches him gather up the messy scatter of cards with delicate hands, Husk feels like showing him every single trick he knows.

_(Look at my hands. Keep looking. No rushing here. It’s easy, see? It’s honest.)_

When the sting in his face has subsided, he groans, “You’re not saying it, but I feel you’re calling me a clown yet again.”

It earns him a chuckle. Alastor pushes the cards—now in a neat stack—towards him. There is a small, hesitant pause, the narrowest window of opportunity.

“What’s this, angling for a private show?” Husk says, squeezing through it head-first, like only a cat could. “Fucking scrounger.”

The reply he gets is Alastor scooting, somehow, even closer to him. Their sides are a single warm line, fur flattened under smooth fabric. _If you’re offering,_ the gesture says. And Husk is. Because he dug his grave, might as well lay in it and take a fucking nap, at this point. He starts shuffling again, ignores the press against his ribcage when their breathing syncs up wrong.

He’s never done close-up magic with the audience basically in his lap, but he does his best. Anything to keep this going. Shame is sober people shit.

“And you aren't using _any_ powers?” Alastor asks, touching around his hair-tuft just like a child would, when Husk deftly pulls a poker chip from behind it. “Are you _certain_?”

Husk puffs up his chest a little. “Cross my heart.”

He does a few more tricks, all the easy stuff he did while Alastor was taking care of the music. The reactions he’s getting make him almost want to reconsider his anti-entertainment vow. Maybe, here as well, magic can be the exception.

“Husker, I cannot believe I’ve never seen you do magic before!” Alastor accuses, nudging him in the shoulder. “You _kept_ this from me.”

“Yeah, well,” Husk flounders. “You pulled a surprise act too, you _virtuoso_ son of a bitch.”

A coy laugh, a dismissive wave of the hand. “Oh, dear, no. Nothing more than a hobbyist, that’s what I am.”

Finally, a semblance of normalcy. Husk’s nose still stings, but he can live with it. If you went looking for what Alastor calls his _boredom_ , and cracked the bastard open like a pomegranate, you’d find him overflowing with black bile. Even with all he knows and all he sees, Husk thinks that _ennui_ does not become him.

“I’ve learned the piano a long, long time ago,” Alastor adds. “Everything else, I’ve picked up right here, over the years. But the foundation of it all lies in those lessons.”

Piano lessons, eh? Husk can just picture it. It’s one of those things you don’t ask. _What did you look like, you know, before?_ You don’t ask that. Even in Hell there are boundaries. Unspoken and rough as broken glass, but they’re there. Look harder.

So Husk doesn’t ask. But he imagines. Lively, but smaller than average, the kind of shrimpy thing that would get rejected at the draft. Swinging his legs from the stool of a grand piano. Won’t keep still, too much energy. Must have been a fucking menace to teach to. Amber skin, bright hazel eyes behind little glasses, live wire and sun-drenched all over. Alastor is no son of the desert, but Husk still sees him skipping in the sand, catching lizards, making any place into his playground.

_(Did it show in anything, what you’d become? What were the signs?)_

Husk snaps his fingers. “Always goes in layers—with everything. You make a base and build on it. Second language paves the way to the third. Piano paves the way to the Celesta.” He nods to himself. _“Layers.”_

Alastor raises his glass to his drunken pearl of wisdom. “Layers!”

Husk is thinking of trees. Layers of soil and shared roots, the blueprints of grammar. Everything he knows was taught to him by someone at different degrees of inebriation. You’d forgive him the imperfections. He thinks of the hundred words folded in the same smile, the thousands that go unread.

He thinks of magic making all that red hurt so bright. _Shine_ so bright. Woah, freudian slip.

“Right, so,” he offers then, words like a hand outstretched, “what’s the fucker’s name?”

“Hmm?”

“The guy, your Calaf.” Husk shrugs, gruff. “You know—your enemies are my enemies, or whatever.”

Alastor blinks at him. Then, the whole of his grey mask-like face softens, lips drawing over his teeth in a closed-mouth smile.

“You know,” he says conversationally, pressing _somehow_ a little closer, “I don’t believe I remember it.”

Husk snorts, shakes his head as he pockets the pack of cards. The moment washes over them, uncertain and mellow with liquor. Husk lets it. You never collar a cat, after all. You domesticate it. He domesticates _himself_ , dammit.

It’s a while before either of them says a word.

“You say such sweet things, when you’re properly soused,” Alastor says then.

Gently, he opens Husk’s left wing, like parting a curtain, slides it over and around him. Husk roots himself to the spot, becoming acutely aware of his elbows on the table. He can feel every vein in the wood under the fabric and fur. For the life of him, he cannot remember a single thing he’s ever said.

He won’t ask, though.

_(There are things you don’t ask.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess nobody told him the _real_ culprits are the librettists Simoni & Adami, cause it's not like the composer writes the story. But shh, he was just trying to help.  
> -  
> quoted verse: [Your glory shines in the magic of the first kiss, of the first tears…]  
> -  
>  _ōsuzumebachi_ are giant hornets that can efficiently wreck beehives. A single species of bee has a defense where they all swarm the hornet and kill it by cooking it alive, but let's not go that far into that allegory.


	8. Pericardium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to bully the waiter some more. Also, linguistics.

“Oi,” Husk grumbles, alula puffing up at the contact, “watch the damn shoulder-pad. That spot’s a bitch to groom already.”

Voice unsteady, no bite behind it. _Smooth._

The Radio Demon gives him an amused grin. “Why, you groom?”

Before he can quip back though, Alastor is shedding his amarena dinner jacket in one fluid gesture. Shimmies right out of it, no hesitation, and settles right back.

Husk blinks down at the garment now neatly folded on Alastor’s lap. His own coat has disappeared too, leaving him in his vest and detached sleeves covering his forearms. Yeah, sure. _Fine._ Why not.

“I… uh. I groom plenty.”

He takes in the skin-close warmth against his side. He makes his eyes avoid the shape of Alastor’s shoulders, so evident through his thin shirt, narrow and human-like. Black suspenders on white muslin. He can feel the quality of the fabric through his fur, where their arms press together. Reminds him of good bedsheets a little bit—that high thread-count shit.

“Indeed? Since when?”

 _Why, you offering?_ he wants to ask. As Alastor taps his blood feathers like piano keys, he thinks of reciprocity. The balance of favors kept new and even. It seems like such a good idea right now. Sounds real, _real_ nice.

But feather-handling is a job for kind, steady hands. We associate wings with freedom, but what they need is blind trust. Even drunk, Husk knows he could never stand it.

“Be like that all you want.” He clears his throat, shifting. “‘M not taking you to the opera.”

It makes Alastor chuckle, again that quiet faint thing. He nestles in the crook of his wing, right against the card suits and his radial nerve, like a heart between ribs. The tip of his acromion presses sharp as hell into Husk’s arm. For a moment, Husk feels it like a sharp stab of hatred for all the _human_ Alastor got to keep, collarbones and all.

Maybe it would be worse, being just one degree removed. The monstrous soul still wearing your used-to-be-human face. _D_ _o you get confused sometimes, in the early morning?,_ he cannot ask. _Do you think you’re there instead of here? Do_ _es it make you think, for a split second,_ _that_ _it’s all_ _been_ _a_ _really fucked up_ _dream?_

_(Does it make it unbearable?)_

_Alright_ , he right away compromises, maybe he could concede for the theater.

Husk and the pericardium of his crimson feathers, their inward draw—protective, involuntary—at the shallow pressure put on his cubital fossa. He cannot help himself.

Of course, he’d pick something Alastor would like, something funny—maybe the new _Titus Andronicus_. Was that one just bloody or _also_ raunchy? Shit, maybe it was. Someone told him about it, but it was a long time ago. Maybe _Chicago_ , then. That one’s about _vaudeville_ , isn’t it? Alastor likes _vaudeville_. He considers it _art_ and _fun_ , apparently blind to the raunchiness. Alastor’s the kind of man that loves American burlesque for the music and costume design. He will say it out loud, and absolutely mean it. He will look at _you_ weird for thinking otherwise. That’s the kind of guy he is.

Whatever they’ll end up seeing, they’ll get drinks after, and talk late into the night. He’ll let Alastor rant on about pacing and dramatic pathos and whatever else, play dumb about how much he really knows. At the right level of inebriated, it’s another plan that sounds real, _real_ nice.

And something else he probably could never stand.

“Cleanse coming soon, huh,” he says instead, desperately yanking back the hanging threads of conversation. “Just a few days to go, now.”

Alastor hums, leaning back between Husk’s wing and his side. “Ah, indeed! It can never come too soon, can it? Every year, the wait is _such_ torture.”

Husk represses a shudder. It’s not like Alastor really needs to prepare, but even a demon of his status will not be out during the full-swarm hours. Hell’s hierarchy suits the Exterminators just fine, after all, all the small fish out there in the streets. Ready for the fryer.

Alastor does not tell him his plans for Cleanse night. The conversation has idled to an unsteady torpor, their drinks almost empty, and the bastard looks about ready to turn in for a nap, mike propped against the table like an ordinary cane. _Take a breath. Take the plunge._

“I’ll... just be down at the Casino, probably,” Husk blurts out, so fast he slurs his words. “My usual haunt. No point in moving from there.”

Alastor yawns into the back of his hand, ever-polite, and tucks himself deeper into the cradle of his primaries. Maybe it’s a _yes._ Maybe he’s just sleepy. It might be the first time, Husk thinks, that he witnesses Alastor slip into apparent relax.

“Swell,” he hums, barely moving his mouth. “Win big, old sport.”

Perhaps too subtle. Alastor is a proficient self-inviter, but actual invitations sometimes fly right over his head. There must be too much bass in his voice, Husk thinks. Always trouble picking up that frequency.

Alastor is a _physical_ man, in all senses. Handsy, energetic, can never seem to hold fully still. A talking and walking epicenter of universal entropy, his neatness is a battle of deliberate effort. If Alastor let it, any space around him would lapse into chaos. Husk would know. He’s seen the man cook. He’ll make noise with anything: every chair squeaks, every pen clicks, every electronic device he walks by buzzes with feedback. God only knows how the man ever generated a single minute of clean audio in his life.

And every forceful hug Husk had ever got has been stiff with the tension running through those wiry arms. A sort of unpleasant, tightly-held rigidity.

There’s none of that now. Alastor has gradually melted into his side, boneless, smile barely there. He looks so lost and unguarded that it starts to bother Husk that anyone here could glance over and just _see_ him like that. The Big Bad _Radio Demon_ , sleep-drunk on two drops of booze. It feels _indecent_.

It’s not the closeness. Complain as he does, Husk got used to that. The absence of space between their sides, that closed gap. Fabric on fabric, fabric on fur. Wrists twined around his bicep. If magicians feared ridicule, he wouldn’t be sitting here, drunk off his gourd, with the embodiment of chaos and evil dozing off on his shoulder and droning out that faint discordant hum. It’s not the closeness.

It’s the breathing. The shift in it, the too-quick change that tips from affectation to actual sleep. The little note in it, that faint, wet hiss-click between tongue and palate, a non-snore that forgoes the comical for a misplaced, unsettling intimacy.

Scruff itching with nervousness, Husk discreetly assesses their surroundings. 

Pub is quiet-ish, not many patrons left. Far from the weirdest thing you could see in Hell, anyway. It’s not the closeness. It’s the slack-jawed vulnerability of sleep on Alastor’s waxen face, that openness that should be _private_. _Secret._ Husk’s wing contracts, wrapping closer, concealing. It takes him an embarrassingly long time to identify that sound.

It’s _him_. A grainy, sand-eaten recording of his own contented purring.

Husk’s mind goes blank for a long moment. Has he drunk-purred in front of the bastard? Shit, he must have—how else would Alastor have the recording? _No._ _N_ _ope._ _We don’t go there_ , says his common sense. For once, he listens.

He looks around, desperate for a distraction to pull himself back from the sweltering abyss he’s toeing the edge of.

“Jérôme, oi.” He clicks, like calling a dog over, when he sees the guy pass by. “Where’s my money, Jérôme?”

The kid gives him an annoyed look. “Dude, how fucking drunk are you?”

“... yes.” A pause. Husk tries and fails to remember the word _hypocritical,_ and how to use it in a sentence in English. Nah, not worth the effort. “So, where’s it?”

“At the till, like any other time,” Jérôme groans. “Sheesh.”

“Fucking bring it to me, then. Stop being useless.”

“Fuck off.” Jérôme throws a fry at him. It barely reaches Husk’s table. “Get done fondling passed out people and go get it yourself, asshole.”

“Excuse _you_ , the gentleman is _resting_ ,” Husk says, over-enunciating all his words in drunken outrage. “Accept the shame and bring— _wait_.” He gestures to Alastor, blissfully unaware in his nest of red feathers. “You... don’t know who this is?”

Jérôme scoffs and crosses his arms, “Do _you_?”

And off he goes, leaving Husk to stew in the ramifications of the term _fondling,_ like week-old cod in a piss gravy. A joke. It was just a _joke_. No reason for his neck to itch like that and his wing to tug closer with defensiveness. And yet.

A roll of bills lands on the table, between the lone fry and their collection of empty bottles.

Jérôme clears his throat, glancing nervously from him to Alastor. “My share is in there, too.”

“He can have it,” floats in Alastor’s voice, coming from nowhere. The guy didn’t move his mouth at all, Husk would have felt it.

Husk shushes him. “You’re talking in your sleep. No the fuck he can’t.”

“He can.” Alastor nuzzles comfortably into Husk’s fur, there on his shoulder, where it’s slightly longer. “Thank you for giving yourself alcohol poisoning, Jérôme,” he says, still projecting his voice. “I got to do the show with dear Husker, thanks to you…”

Oh. Wow, damn.

Husk lets himself dare and lean the littlest bit back against the bastard. Testing. There is a barely audible crackle of static. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance Alastor was being ironic. 

Putting the matter off his mind as much as he can, Husk quickly counts out the money and tucks his share into his hat. He hands Alastor’s share to Jérôme, who receives it like he thought he would sooner ascend to Heaven than actually get paid.

“Y-you’re welcome, kind stranger that said my name right,” Jérôme murmurs, looking starry-eyed at the dozing demon. Husk’s wing folds tighter.

Then, he squints and looks from one to the other, back and forth a few times.

“So, wait,” he articulates, pointing directly to Alastor’s face. “You _really_ have no idea who this is?”

As the kid gives a shrug, Husk nudges Alastor until there’s the faint flash of red from his eyes blinking open. “Unbelievable. On those damn phones all day, but these kids still don’t talk to each other.” He turns back to the waiter. “Jérôme, why do you think you’re the only one coming ‘round our table?”

“Cause only lazy bastards work here?”

“Kid, this is the scariest guy in Hell.”

Husk says it with all the conviction he could muster, given that Alastor has picked that exact moment to boop his nose against his still-pointing finger.

Surprisingly, Jérôme does not laugh. Not even a little sneer. “Well, he said my name right, so I already like him more than I like you.” He huffs, shaking his head. “No one can get the _J_ right. Or the _R_. Or just understand that my name’s not _G_ _erry,_ or _Jeremy_.”

Stung in his polyglot pride, Husk bristles. “Oi—”

“ _Hell-o_ there, my young fellow!” Alastor perks up, cutting off Husk’s brewing retort, suddenly wide awake. “French, or French speaker?”

The effect is immediate, like a change in air density, when the clouds gather and the pressure tumbles way down.

“N-neither, sir. But my mama’s from Dulac,” Jérôme says, back jolting straight, eyes lighting up. “Hey, you from there too?”

‘ _Neither, sir.’ Jesus Christ_. Of all of Alastor’s creepy and dangerous powers, the one that makes Husk’s skin crawl the most is his _charm._ The way it mixes with the anti-charisma, makes it so that when the Radio Demon is interested in you, you _notice_. 

It’s an oily, sticky feeling. Alastor’s interest is a tangible thing, heavy, all-encompassing. He makes no effort to hide it, pulls you in two-handed and shameless, like a riptide. The world disappears and, for as long as you can ride it, you feel so fucking _special_. You’d tell him your life story if he offered you the mike, spill your deepest darkest secrets. You’d sell your soul twice over. It’s an intensity that burns even before it starts to drown you.

Now, Alastor shoots upright, wobbling and grinning, and shadow-ports an inch from Jérôme’s face.

“New Orleans born and raised, sugar!”

He attempts a twirl. Manages it, somehow, held up by his shadow and a hand on the table. He’s pitched his voice different to say that, letting a melodic lilt link the words and carry his vowels off into the night. _New’Awlins. Reii’s’d._

Jérôme laughs. “And now you sound like it, too!” They high-five. Husk feels like he’s having a stroke. “I was there on a school trip!”

To Husk’s utter dismay, Alastor immediately grabs the kid and sits him at their table.

“Oh, you must tell me _all_ about it!”

There he goes. Full laser-beam attention, chin propped on both hands and perked up, wide-eyed, in Jérôme’s direction. As if he hadn’t been dozing off a minute ago. Poor kid actually flushes a little. Husk, who was in a similar pose for no correlated reason, quickly puts his hand down.

Visibly racking his little youngster brain for something that will impress, Jérôme stammers out some French. Husk picks up the broad-strokes of it through proxy-knowledge, but misses the specifics. Something about being great at the piano, and learning, and jazz clubs in the 20s. Alastor readily replies, but something in it prompts Jérôme to ask if Alastor doesn’t get to speak the language much.

“Ah—indeed, I understand well enough, but I wouldn’t say I’m in the slightest way _proficient_ ,” Alastor admits, soul-crushing embarrassment imperceptible save for the slight staccato in his delivery, the faint dusting of purple-grey on his waxen cheeks. “The times, you know. How they change.”

“Oh, man, New Orleans was so great!” Jérôme is saying, blissfully unaware he stepped over five border-lines and a couple landmines in thirty seconds of conversation. “The cemeteries, all the spooky shops, the _clubs—_! Oh, and I’ve always wanted to go study at UNO…”

A lively discussion immediately sparks, about schooling and whatnot. Husk can tell Alastor is confused as to which school is being referenced, trying to play it off. Excellent chance to nip off to the bathroom.

If Alastor hasn’t murdered Jérôme already, after all, odds are good he’ll wait a piss’ time.

* * *

It’s like this. If you let the bastard speak, he’ll talk you into a hypnotic lull.

Alastor has a gift in the way he can tell you about nothing at all, any dumb story that would bore a librarian to tears, and spin it into something interesting. Going on and on in that pompous, all-treble Katherine Hepburn inflection—because Husk refuses to call it an _accent_ —that’s from nowhere and anywhere. 

Alastor is _always_ on. He talks fast, jarring, near-manic. He talks like someone will shoot him if he drops the speed. He built a life and an afterlife on it, on that voice made to _entertain_. For nighttime radio-dramas that make the huddled families gasp in one voice. Rile up stadiums. Rattle off racehorse names, while betters knock out each other’s teeth in the background. It’s unnerving, and a little magical. It never stops being exhausting.

But you get used to it. You wouldn’t _imagine_ the things you can get used to.

People tend to assume Husk dropped into Hell well-read and well-traveled. Truth is, hang out with enough drunk linguists and philosophers and science folks and theatre buffs, you’ll collect a lot of very specific bits of knowledge.

So, Husk likes to spot the little things in the inflection, the nuances. Those _Ts_ so clipped, sharp as lily stems. The way the _Js_ glide in anywhere they see a _U_ that seems lonely. _Tjurando’t_. _Absoljut’ boredom_. _Stay tjun’d!_ And _Husk’a_ _h_ _,_ of course, with the clicky _K_ and that disappearing Brit-posh _R_. The self-satisfied way he sounds out foreign words, mispronouncing with insufferable smugness, rejecting corrections as if no one had spoken.

And here and there, long vowels landing soft as feathers, drawing long like cats in the sun. _Daan_ _s._ _Chaans._ _Fraans._ That’s how he knows it could be soothing, this boarding school lockjaw mess. If Alastor wanted to make it so.

Husk has learned nothing from books. None of his languages, not even how to read. All he ever needed was his good ear and his butt behind something you can drink and play cards on. Bar’s counter, blackjack table. Cover hatch of an M48. You get to know a lot of well-traveled bastards that way, back in his city where everyone was always arriving, and no one seems to live anymore.

He has met others that speak with the same artificial inflection—both on Earth back in the day, and below it where time displacement adds a fun spin to the concept of _well-traveled_. They spoke similarly, but not the same.

Never heard it used exclusively, like a mother-tongue, with only emptiness behind it.

 _Like an open book_ , the saying goes.

To be able to read Alastor is more like getting your front door open in the dark. It’s something you know. It’s there, you’ve done it countless times. You still fumble, palms to the wall, your key scratching off the paint. Maybe the darkness has changed it, swallowed the familiar into something unknown. A part of you wonders if you’ve ever really been here before, what hides behind that door. Willing or not, we walk those tightropes.

 _An open book._ When you can see the jagged edges of something—something lost, something stolen—you don’t crack the spine flat to take a better look. You leave it alone. We let those drowned roots rest. We protect the secrets.

Don’t look. Not at the birth certificate, left blank. There will be no talk of iron-lace built on a quagmire, of the long shadow of St. Augustine’s cross across the road. Of the whitewash solemnity of Laveau’s grave.

Don’t look, even if you have sharp eyes and that see all and more. The hard times, the wrong choices. The violent end. A tree fell too young, all green, won’t even make you a good fire.

_(He can never keep you warm.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [like week-old cod in a piss gravy.] is a reference to my favourite simile in the Villainous fic _Help Wanted_, by Maximum Overboner: [He didn’t say anything, just let Flug stew in his own idiocy like a dumpling in piss.]  
> -  
> Alastor's particular voice inflection is called Mid-atlantic/trans-atlantic accent, which is the American equivalent of RP in British English. It's not a naturally occurring accent, but instead a mix of British and American English pronounciation, taught in private schools and used in theatre (and radio ofc).
> 
> Awfully simplifying a really complex class/race/history issue, it's contextually very Specific that Alastor (a mixed Creole man from New Orleans) is not fluent in French. We don't explore that too much in this, but Husk's linguistic cat-senses can tell that something's off there, and that it's the kind of thing you _don't ask_.


	9. All that you left me was a melody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drunken daydreams, bittersweet parting.

When Husk comes back, Jérôme is showing Alastor something on his phone. 

As sometimes the curse of farsightedness follows you into Hell just so you can look like a punk librarian, Alastor is squinting at the screen through his red-tinted, infuriatingly small reading glasses. Monocle probably didn’t cut it.

Jérôme is saying, “Well, couldn’t get into UNO, so then I just…”

God, _still_ talking about school. Husk tunes out immediately.

As he slides back into his spot, Alastor scoots slightly forward, freeing space for him to drape his wing along the wall, where it was before he got up. Well. All right, then.

“Or, wait, did you mean how I got _here_? Bike accident.” Jérôme points up to his crest. “Didn’t wear my helmet. Was a bit drunk, too.”

Alastor’s hand shoots up, covering his mouth. “Oh, _motorcycles_ ,” he gasps, head snapping around to look at Husk. Husk gives him an absent nod.

“What? Oh, yeah. Dangerous things.”

“ _So_ dangerous!”

We judge how others die. It’s instinct. Self-reassurance over the dead’s dignity, outright or implied, we say how _stupid_ they’ve been. How much better we would have done in their place. That instinct does not go away after we die. It becomes galvanised, like a young Achilles in the Styx of irony. 

No one will judge your fucked up death as harshly as a demon that died just as bad.

Jérôme blinks at them. “But like, if you meant why I’m _down here_ , I think it was the shoplifting. And the internet scams.”

Alastor’s hand lowers. A familiar head-tilt. “Jérôme, my young friend, if I may... how old are you?”

The kid shifts on his seat, squirming under all that _interest_. “If I’m counting right… I would have been nineteen in about three months.”

“Oh, bless your _heart_.”

The certain inflection Alastor uses throws Husk for a loop. A step beyond motherly. Some kind of warm, caring _outrage_ , tinged with incomprehension and generational disconnect.

… _grandmotherly_ , that’s it.

He shudders, jarred. Also, fucking _eighteen_ , dammit. Now he even has to feel bad for bullying the kid so much. As Husk quickly pops open another bottle, Jérôme lets out a nervous little laugh, starts to fidget with the fries’ basket still on the table.

“Well, yeah, I was saying, at least my parents can keep what they saved to get me started up there, right? Twenty-five grand’s a lot of money. Maybe they can redo the kitchen or… I don’t know. Get an electric car, or whatever.”

The two of them are giving the kid the same blank stare, Husk can feel it. Except his own is disinterest, and Alastor’s is befuddlement. He hears him mutter something about _streetcars_ to himself. Then, the bastard turns to him.

“How much is that in _real_ money, Husker?”

 _Ugh, w_ _ay to put me on the fucking spot, jackass._ Looking away to think, Husk catches the kid’s confused look.

“The man lost track of currency value _waaay_ back, when the Depression hit,” he explains. “Gimme a sec.”

Doing the math in his head takes him a moment. Then, the approximate number is whispered like an indiscretion in Alastor’s ear, and the laugh-track pops out of the latter so sudden that even he looks taken aback.

“Well,” he tries, clearing his throat to quiet it, “elite education does come at a price, doesn’t it? I remember that when _I_ started coll—”

“Nah, that’s a really average cost, as far as I’ve been told.”

After a moment of bafflement, Alastor attacks again. The _Concept of Inflation_ itself is an enemy of his today, for some reason. Then and there, Husk picks his side. He refuses to go to war for this one.

“Well! Then… then I suppose that it’s a huge expense, but… once that’s done, it’s out of the way, at least!”

Satisfied with his conclusion—and that he’s had the last word—Alastor goes to take a sip of his drink. Husk, holding up a finger to stop Jérôme from interjecting, waits for him to have some liquid in his mouth before speaking.

“Oh, did I mention that’s the average cost _per year_?”

Alastor’s drink does not spray everywhere like he’d hoped, but he does choke and sputter at least a little bit. Allowing himself all the smugness he can scrounge together, for once, Husk hovers his hand and waits for a gesture of acknowledgement before thumping him good-naturedly on the back.

“Oh—oh, my, that’s so _evil_ ,” Alastor wheezes, holding his monocle in place. “I wonder who thought of such a thing. Is it divine irony, or the demonic scheme of some Overlord down here? Oh, dear, I can only imagine all the _desperate_ little souls, crushed under this weight, this paper behemoth, their very youth chained for _years_ to a decision made so early… oh, it’s _priceless_. I wish _I_ were the devil behind it.”

Husk adds, smugly, “Doesn’t even include textbooks. Or food.”

Alastor freezes, letting out the noise of a stuck record trying to start, as he absorbs this new information and gears up to continue his invigorating rant. Husk has half a mind to tell him about medical debt next. As he has intimate knowledge of the matter, and therefore more absurd details to provide, it should be even funnier. The miracle of hindsight.

However, Jérôme has followed the exchange with a darkening brow and a flared crest, and refuses to let Husk’s finger silence him a moment longer.

“Uhm, excuse me—it’s not really _funny_ ,” the young spoilsport says. “Look... you guys are out of touch, I get it. And okay, my generation is big on irony I guess, we _love_ gallows humor, haha, it’s funny ‘cause we have no future, _woo_! But really, student debt is a _huge_ issue. Don’t joke about it if you haven’t gone through it.”

_Ah, shit._

Husk could pinpoint the split second in which Alastor loses all interest in Jérôme.

Not that he wants to. But he can. It’s something going cold and dead in his eyes, a spark extinguished like a candle left by an open window. The eyes are the same. He’s still smiling, still leaning his elbows on the table. But the friendliness, the warmth, the attention—all gone. That’s the moment the riptide pulls you under.

And just like that, one moment to the next, the kid is in danger. Screwed himself over the moment his demonic body recovered from his booze binge.

“Ah, shit, look at the time.” Husk points to his wrist, conspicuously lacking any sort of time-keeping device. “Isn’t it time to start wiping down the kitchen, Jérôme?”

“Huh? Ah, right.”

The kid jumps up, sets the chair back under the table out of habit.

“Anyway, hey, before I forget,” he says, and points to Alastor with all the genuine fearlessness of someone who has _no_ freaking clue. “You, French practice. Me, piano practice. And we both improve. What do you say, deal?”

A cold chill rakes icy fingers up Husk’s spine, making his wings twitch in unease. He watches Alastor blink at the kid, head tilted, like he’s surprised to see him there at all. He offers a cold smile, void of any malice. Husk shudders. He’s take any anglerfish smile over this flat, dead thing.

“No,” Alastor says, idly returning to inspecting his nails.

Husk grits his teeth. He _hates_ that he can read this far. Language prodigy like him, he thinks bitterly, he should have been a fucking interpreter. It hurts when this happens, even to others. The concrete reminder that anyone means anything to Alastor ‘till the moment they stop amusing him. Like a fragile, time-bound spell.

 _God, stop playing with your fucking food,_ Husk wants to yell at him. _Kid’s eighteen and two months dead, give him a fucking break._

But Alastor doesn’t know kinship. It means nothing to him that the kid died young, like him. That they come from the same land, the heritage and places they have in common. It’s tap-dancing and tightropes with him, nothing else, no exception for anyone.

Alastor would murder his own past self, if he met him and found him _boring_.

“… oh,” Jérôme says, pulling his hand back as if scalded. He looks to Husk, hurt and confusion clear on his face. Husk shakes his head. “O-okay then, another time. Thanks for the talk?”

Husk gives him a half-assed thumbs up. Alastor gives him absolutely nothing, looking bored to tears.

It’s a small mercy, Husk supposes. This _not in the mood_ languor.

In the old days, Alastor would have pounced like a starved moray eel, jaw already unhinged, on anyone dumb enough to utter the word _deal_ in his presence.

* * *

The pub is near closing time.

When Jérôme comes back to banish them from the table so he can wipe it down, the two of them—now nearing indecent levels of intoxication—steal to the baize for a very erratic game of pool. After that, they end up by the used-to-be-piano again. Going back to it, without even thinking, Husk had gallantly offered his arm. Alastor had taken it.

Now the infamous Radio Demon, once again in a cheerful mood, sways slightly on the piano stool like a willow branch in the breeze. He squints at the keyboard, like it’s being difficult with him on purpose.

“No, but… wait, _wait_ ,” he slurs, pink-cheeked and artfully dishevelled. “Was it… it wasn’t in _E major_ , was it?”

Leaning heavily on the corner of the Celesta, Hugs gives him a garbled note—best he can do—and knocks back a noisy gulp from yet another bottle. “Fuck if I know, Al.”

Music is puzzle-solving. Brows furrowed in concentration, Alastor tries something else, fingers tripping over each other, tweaking the melody this way and that. Perusing the dissonance, its scattered pieces, until something clicks into place. Husk lets out a bark of laughter, triumphant. It sounds even weirder than he imagined, on this cursed music box.

The proficiency is not the problem. Even in his altered state, Alastor is very good at this.

The problem is the faint glow around him, the red candles, the faint radiance of their drunkenness softening all the jagged edges. The problem is that he made not one, but three exceptions for modern music, finding them all by ear, just to sing them with Husk. Who would have thought that _We Gotta Get Out of This Place, Fortunate son_ , and now _Rosie_ could be improved with a little 20s treble flair? The problem is how unfocused and sleepy-eyed he looks, how genuinely _happy._ Husk has never seen him like this before.

“ _Nobody’s up except the moon and me,_ ” Alastor intones, pitching his voice a little lower than it’s supposed to go. He grins up to Husk, distortion making him almost hard to listen to. “ _And a lazy tomcat on a midnight spree…_ ”

Husk laughs. For a single, pure instant, he’s a man without a care in the world, in all the good ways. Care is a terrible, terrible beast.

“ _And the moon’s all up, full and big,_ ” he croons back. “ _Apricot tips in an indigo sky…_ ”

It is the most recent, this third one. Came out right when Husk was sick and fading from the world. Aptly, it sounds like it was _made_ to be sung while shitface drunk.

The song melts into a previous one, the raindrop music trickling around unknown chords, carving the music from negative space. _We gotta get out of this place—a better life for me and you, somewhere baby, somehow I know it—_ lyrics twisting and twining, like growing roots. 

The problem is how good it feels, the unbearable intensity of Alastor’s attention. The breadth and weight of it, the dark yawn of the abyss. The selfish satisfaction of having it all to himself and carrying on, walking undrowned over those unsteady waters. A sinner’s miracle.

_(You re-learn to breathe.)_

_When’s my turn gonna come, huh?_ _You grow bored so easily._ Husk’s mouth is a taxed bladder. Wants to spill over, make a fool of him. _Come on. Come on, you bastard. Why were you_ _really_ _here tonight?_

He clenches his muscles, holds it in. This is a problem Sober Husk would _never_ have. Sober Husk, with all that caring, wouldn’t even dare to peer down in these unlit waters. Sober Husk, the fucking coward, has never seen an anglerfish smile, and murmur sweet nothings in his half-sleep.

“Al, Al, you old bastard, listen,” he cracks. “Why you... were you here tonight?”

Alastor gives him a look. Wide-eyed surprise. He gestures with a sloppy flourish to the lily back in his lapel. “Why, my friend…! My dear Husker, your… your _show_ was on!”

Worst possible answer. It’s too simple, too honest, it leaves nowhere to hide. Alastor meant that only ironically. He must have.

“‘S just... just a shitty magic show.”

The problem is his own voice, a little more naked than intended. The problem is demonic metabolism, how fucking fast sobriety knocks on your door every damn time.

Alastor snorts, shakes his head. A drunken shadow-tendril grabs Husk, and manhandles him to sit. Too close, once again. Too fucking close.

This is how, a little later, the night finds them both on that stool, a pair of skinny bastards fitting two asses in the space of one. Still bothering the poor instrument with their drunken claws.

Husk is phasing in and out of himself, vaguely nauseous, head back in the fishbowl. Alastor leans against his side, a wing tugged again around himself. Cats are death-cheaters, and wings are allowed everything they want, it seems. Blind trust, blind freedom.

He doesn’t know exactly when the Celesta stops playing, when Alastor’s deft red-tipped fingers take a hold of his own, and start tracing his heart-shaped pads and then paths up into his sleeve. He feels them graze the stitching, test the give of the fabric, trace those perfectly themed cufflinks. He can barely breathe.

“You like these, hm?” Alastor waits for the shaky nod. “Good, good. Keep them. Keep it all. It— _haha_ , oh—it… it rather _suits_ you…!”

Husk loses him for a solid minute to breathless giggling at his own pun. Then, the fingers delve back in, following the pulse-line of his inner wrist. Husk shivers as they come away holding a couple of props. Poker chips, handkerchiefs, an old zippo.

“Oi,” Husk scolds, “don’t reveal all my tricks, you.”

_(Keep the secrecy.)_

The only response he receives is more crackly giggling, a full-body vibration against his side. Then, it’s just hands on hands on hands, no more props. No more buffer, nothing but nails raking through fur for the sake of it. Nothing but the scent of him, that terrible cloying thing that dulls the senses and defies reason, makes him think of places he’ll never get to see.

_(He knows nothing of quagmires. What lives there, what dies there.)_

Then, something else catches Alastor’s attention.

“Ah, _that’s_ how you do it.” He pulls another card from between Husk’s feathers. Grinning wider, he asks, “Was this my card?”

 _Two of Spades._ Husk can’t help but snort at the irony, ache at that still-breathless voice. “Yeah.” _See? You could do it too. It’s just practice_. “Knew it, should have kept you at arm’s length.” 

And this, too, came out a bit more naked than he meant.

Another chuckle. “A _teensy_ bit closer than arm’s length, seems to me.”

Alastor says it happily, unbothered. Almost a chirp. His crescent moon of teeth a wide, welcoming thing that reaches his eyes. A light squeeze, this arm-in-arm pressure. Gentle, friendly. A fool would think it sincere affection.

It’s the booze. It has to be. Alcohol, and the unusually good evening Husk has had have teamed up against him. 

It must be, because in all his years he cannot remember the set phrase _lost in your eyes_ ever having any meaning. Not even back when the ring fit, back when the city made sense. That must be it, the vapors-cloud air of the pub, leftover fumes of alcohol fogging up his mind. It must be the way the shadows keep catching in Alastor’s pupils, making the word _doe-eyed_ waltz into literality.

For once, just this once, he wishes life would let him be a fool.

Imagine. _Walking you home, just like this, tucked into my wing. The ever-noisy city around us, muffled, fading. It won’t crumble if I don’t keep watch, will it? Just for tonight._ Waking with a clear head, sane and fearless, remembering it all and wanting to.

Uncertain, with a touch as barely-there as inebriation allows, Husk plucks the lily from Alastor’s lapel. The bastard reads his mind, bowing to have it tucked in his hair. There, right by the mesquite thorns on his head. _Careful_ _,_ the tilt says. _D_ _on_ _’t get stung._

Imagine. This—this pinprick of spring in the middle of Hell, red-clad red-handed red-cheeked, this wretched glimmer of _hope_ —meaning _something_.

A little push, it’s all the moment needs. The smallest of moves. A tug on the lapel. His knuckle, tracing the corner of a smile. A word of clarity. _Wanna learn a magic trick? Look, it’s easy. Look at my hands_.

Husk would give himself whole, not a second thought. Throw himself head-first into Alastor’s unhinged jaws. _Pick my bones clean,_ he’d say, _suck all the marrow out, down to the last drop._ Don’t leave a trace, as if they’d been bleached clean by the desert sun. Out in the open, as it should have been. There are worse ways to go, he supposes. And for regret, there’s always the rest of eternity.

_(He knows all about regret.)_

A raindrop note from the Celesta cuts through that whirlpool of morbid thoughts. A faint echo under Alastor’s finger.

“You could keep this too, if you wish,” he says, through a faint buzz of white noise. He gestures to his one of a kind, collector’s item antique little piano. “For your next show.”

Imagine. Stage magic being _actual_ magic, a trick you can learn that gets rid of the _boredom_ , make Alastor want to keep to the city. No more years without a glimpse, no more black bile that overflows, no more dead-flat smiles. There’s something they can find—something that can save them, there, in their souls damned but still whole, within some _when_ or _if_ just beyond reach.

“No, no,” Husk says. He says _no_ with his mouth, his wagging index finger. Shakes his head for good measure. “This was a one-time thing. You’ll gobble me up whole otherwise. Bones and all.”

Earnestness. Big raw scary thing, with its tower of implications, with its risk not calculated.

“Oh?” Alastor blinks up at him. “You... had another pianist in mind?”

Husk shakes his head again. “You’d get bored, doing the same thing every time.” Even drunk, he can see the risk in that outweighs any admission he could make. “And I... already owe you. Way too much.”

“Written it off as a favor, I said,” Alastor reminds him, smiling small, brows knitting.

Husk brushes through the red strands, carefully combing them into place. He traces the hairline, soft with baby-hair under the unruly forelock. The white noise stutters slightly, then resumes. 

“And I’ll be waiting for that bloodless job you promised.” He grins, shrugs. “You hold all the cards.”

Alastor looks down at the cards he’s still holding. It’s a lousy hand. He folds, laying them facedown on the Celesta’s lid. His shoulders droop slightly with a sigh. There is a slow press, a weight, a welcome absence of space. Husk sighs into it, that pillow of things unsaid, aching deep.

It’s a while before Alastor says a word.

“It is getting rather late, isn’t it?” he murmurs, and unsteadily flows out of the seat.

His tone sounds so final that, for a moment, Husk is certain he’ll never see the bastard again. A brief panic seizes him, a convulse clench of his empty wing-hold.

“What—what will you do?” he gasps, breathless, too drunk for dignity. “Calaf, what if he’s really still at your place...?”

He had half a mind to take the couch in his own home. Not that he’d ask, not that it would be in any way necessary, but—he thought of it. Alastor gives a nonchalant shrug, halts Husk’s babble by cupping his jaw with sharp claws. Gentle, but not kind.

“If that’s the case, I’ll handle it.”

Husk says nothing then, looking up with begging eyes. _I’ll go,_ they say. _Send me, I volunteer. Let me do what I’m good at._ Alastor strokes his cheek, silent, letting his hand be scent-marked. _Let something else go the way it’s supposed to._

Open secrets, that’s what they’re called. There have been fights he’s helped in, stories told in the dark. He has a reputation here that would make his ex-brigade gasp. He wishes he weren’t proud of it.

And yet, he knows he is not needed. Not really, not enough to mean something. He’s always known. _You insufferable,_ _cryptic_ _thing. Be the one to tell me_ _everything, for once. Show me those cards you play so close to your chest._ _Tell me what has made you._ _I swear, I won’t call your bluff._

_Your enemies are my enemies, and I carry only two secrets: I talk to you when you’re not around, and I’d go to war for you._

He doesn’t know why he’s thinking of fights now. There’s nothing to fight. There’s nothing Alastor needs from him. Must be why he’s decided to leave.

“But you’ll be careful, right?” he forces out. And Alastor must know he doesn’t mean just tonight.

 _Let me stand guard while you rest. That’s how we survive. You would know, if you hadn’t died a kid. I want to stand in your house and breathe in._ Being a guest is awkward, in the early morning. The air of a home in those hours is private, sleep-laden. Like a funeral, you’re always intruding, no matter how close you are. _Sometimes, I feel like that in my own house._

_(He knows nothing of family.)_

Imagine. Waking up on his couch, stretching out the cramps. Alastor, rousing confused from his borrowed bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, adjusting his reception—or whatever else he does in the morning after waking up. 

We have our little rituals. On those, we build a little life. A we-shaped sense of time, away from the _whens_ and the _ifs_. Husk would make coffee, the good stuff. He has an antique _cuccumella_ he has won at cards. Makes a brew _to die for_. _(Here goes a pause. For the arpeggio of your laugh. See? I make space.)_ If he plays it right, he might persuade Alastor to make boozy _pain perdu_. Spiced rum in the batter, soaked through with custard, with cane syrup.

Two damned souls, sitting across each other, pouring coffee. Table and chairs, the pink dawn of Hell. Breakfast in the middle. An absolute dripping sticky mess, as it should be. The parody of human life wouldn’t be so bad then, maybe. Just this once. Husk would gladly do the dishes.

And there would be no doubt what kind of night it has been.

_See, you wouldn’t have to worry. Never, ever, about anything._

_(I don’t even wear cologne.)_

The feeling that somehow, in some way, Alastor is seeing all of this play out in his head is impossible to shake. It’s terrifying, this open book reading him back, seeing too far, seeing all the impossibilities stacked against them.

Something of all this must transpire, some wretched shrapnel of _hope_ , because Husk sees the shutters come down in his eyes.

“Goodnight, my Marksman,” Alastor whispers, in his strange mercy, sparing him before he can utterly debase himself. “Thank you.”

“I—for… for what?”

“For everything, of course.”

He sees his close-mouthed smile, only half of it there., uncharacteristically soft. The utter sadness in it. And in an instant, he’s disappeared.

“Wait, I—“ Husk calls after him, in the empty air.

Silence falls. Another empty seat. Not even the shadows are there to listen.

He drags a hand over his eyes, cursing under his breath. This time, at least Alastor took the flower with him.

Small fucking mercies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gen Z kid vs Out of touch grandpa number 2...  
> and then ALL the angst. Because oh no, a glimpse of _Committment,_ time to run.  
> After this, we only have the epilogue left <3  
> -  
> Title from the song they drunkenly sing, Rosie by Tom Waits (1973).  
> -  
> A _cuccumella_ is a drip brew coffee pot you put on the stove, traditional to Naples. _Pain perdu_ is a version of French Toast.  
> -  
> Bones bleached clean by the desert sun is a WTNV reference from Episode 28 - Summer Reading Program. The line goes: [Words belong to our enemies, and our enemies are words, so be as mute and pure as a bone bleached clean by our desert sun. By our desert sun.]


	10. Epilogue - Bittersweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It started with you, alone in a bar._

_It started with you, alone in a bar._

_It ends much in the same way._

* * *

The pub is finally empty. The candles burn low still.

Husk sits on his bench, unmoving, and thinks of eternity. Far-off prairie homes where _hope_ lives. Language might be arbitrary, but he feels he’s never known what _hope_ was ever supposed to mean. Most consider it a good thing. To him, it’s been nothing but torment.

He’s paid off both tabs, because bartering is _stupid_. Too involved, too _personal_.

Money’s safer, he thinks, making the _Two of Spades_ appear and disappear in his hands. It was always safer. Money won’t _keep doing this to you_.

He has drank away nearly all his earnings. Bottles and tumblers and slow-melting ice. Somehow, soul-crushingly, he doesn’t feel any drunker. The numbness eludes, his sharp senses rent with loss. Visceral, down in the marrow, where all longing lives.

A cup of coffee appears in front of him, black as night. He has no memory of asking for it.

Jérôme sits down at Husk’s table with a sigh. Undoes his bow-tie and leans forward on those gangly elbows. His shirt-sleeves are rolled up, and he keeps scratching absent-mindedly at the phone number scribbled in sharpie on his inner arm. That leopard young lady, perhaps? _Well, cheer up_ _then_ _,_ _you little shit._ But, Husk could swear, Jérôme now seems a little older about the eyes. He waits, says nothing.

“I... don’t think I like your friend,” Jérôme mutters then, after a beat or two. Careful, hushed.

“Yeah.” Husk flips the bottle-cap of his last beer in his empty glass. _C_ _link,_ metal on ice. Clean and precise, like nothing else ever. “’S a common enough sentiment.”

“For pretty good reasons, eh?”

Husk can’t help a sneer. _Oh boy, you don’t wanna know._ “Any you could think of.”

“But you do. Despite... all of those reasons.”

Husk tries the coffee. It’s probably decent quality, but everything tastes like brewery wastewater after this much booze. He feels a little sick, stomach churning, tongue like ash. He’s not sure he can move for the time being.

“Yep.”

Simple. More grunt than word. But language is arbitrary, and a guttural syllable can be invested with the power to blow decades of carefully curated repression to the fucking wind. If his _hope_ has the gall to be so bare, so _evident_ , he figures, then it deserves the mortification of acknowledgement. Live and learn; die and learn harder.

He glances skywards. “It’s part of my Damnation, is my best guess.”

There is a pause. Long and awkward, well-deserved. Nourishes his self-hate like canned soup three months past its Best By date.

Then, inexplicably, Jérôme says, “… _o_ _of_ ,” and nothing else.

Last orders were a while ago, but he barely noticed Jérôme clean up around him, wiping and mopping. Chipping off the dried chewing gum from under the tables. It’s like watching a young himself, tidying up the casino at the end of a long day.

Back then, it would get near-dawn and he’d watch it come in, and think life didn’t make a lick of sense. But he still had the desert sun shining through the window on his clean rows of glasses, making them glint off the ceiling like the Northern Lights, and thought it was alright anyway. That there was time for small miracles, time for real answers. He wasn’t in any rush.

He wonders where he would be, that bright-eyed young self, if he had _known_.

“Still, it got me thinking… I hope I find a friend, too, at some point,” Jérôme says, faint in the quiet. “Probably hard to find, but I have time, don’t I? Someone that likes you _that_ much, even with all the reasons not to. It must be nice. Lucky.”

Husk has nothing for that. No after-life advice to offer. He—they’ve done the kid enough damage for one night, he thinks. So, he sits. He drinks the coffee. He lets the sharp bitterness of it feel sweet by association, lets it hit his queasy stomach like a punishment.

“It gets bad. Always does.” He lifts a hand, traces the shadows of touch left on his jaw. Red-tipped, airy-fingered destruction. Brutal, like Hell is, and strange in its mercy. “Hard to find anything that’s not at least a _bit_ fucked up down here, kid.”

Jérôme scratches his arm again. He lingers there a while, silent and awkward. Husk doesn’t have it in him to offer anything to restart the conversation with. After a while, the kid checks his phone in that absent way young people have, when they check the time but forget to actually look at it. Figures.

But Jérôme does look at the time, and drops the pub’s keys on Husk’s table.

“’Kay, lock up when you’re done moping,” he tells him when Husk looks at him in tired incomprehension. “And you better not fucking puke on my clean floors.”

 _Fuck offs_ are exchanged, serving as their _goodbyes_ and _goodnight, get home safe._ Husk sees the kindness in those entrusted keys, but can’t bring himself to offer thanks in return. He’s drained of gratitude, like a raided beehive.

Alone in the deserted pub after a fairly successful magic show, he allows himself a deep, deep sign. He murmurs Turandot’s first riddle to himself, _What is born each night and dies each dawn?_

It’s _Hope_. The answer is fucking _hope_. Oh, the wretched irony. He still feels that opera is fucked up on a plot level. Unrealistic, outdated shit. _Leave the bitch alone, if she doesn’t want to marry. Sheesh._

It’s not all on her, is it? It’s not just _her_ issues. If he gave it a bit more thought, maybe the Prince too would have realised he himself would never be ready. That he could never stand her hands in his wings, because he doesn’t trust her, nor he trusts himself. That his very way of being is antithetic to love.

… despite it all, he still hopes that bastard got home safe too. No Calaf to dispose of, just his own bed to sink into. Antlers and cherrywood. All his red, and all his hollow misery. Husk does wish him the worst hangover of his afterlife, though. He’s no fucking saint.

He’d probably be better off, if he’d been a proper _pessimist_. If he were as cynical as he claims. If he had let go of magic when it was time. Would have learned his lesson sooner.

But life—then war, then Hell—hasn’t managed to beat that shit out of him, either.

_(He knows all about hope.)_

What a big fucking riot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! Thank you for sticking around for the ride <3

**Author's Note:**

> This 20k thing was supposed to be a drabble, so that's where I'm at.  
> Come yell at me about meta and stuff @ hereticality.tumblr.com.


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